ARCHON AU. | The Beast King | The Hunters God | Venatores Dei
Note: As with Gio’s archon au, I don’t feel it... ENTIRELY suiting to say that this version of Riga is 100% his modern counterpart, though they do share the same name ( or rather... nickname, I suppose ).
IN THE DISTANT PAST DID THE KING OF BEASTS ROAM THE NORTH. Abiding no laws and no masters but that of natures most primal command; The king of beasts, the hunters god, rode atop a bear of massive proportion alongside a pack of wild wolves and mutts loyal only to him. It was said that predators lowered their head in reverence of his presence; and that only the strongest of humans would find themselves blessed to join the never-ending hunt alongside him.
This was changed when Seire took to the north; Gathering en masse a blind, devoted, and fearful following, who sought little more than his prophecies of futures and fortunes; Of a city in the far north, in the land that knew nothing but storm, where they would be free of outside tyrannies, safe to live out the oncoming war. Though at first the King of Beasts took no interest in the false-prophet nor his city of ice, the two gods came to blows when it was discovered that, rather than truly befell the storm across the land-- Seire would do no more than create a safe haven within it, spreading the storms effects and creating a barrier of uninhabitable tundra drenched beneath the permafrost of an eternal blizzard.
With his territory threatened did the two gods come to blows; And though the small God of Snowstorms would stand no chance against the might of the Hunters God-- Ultimately was he forced to recede from the battleground, as the members of his pack were picked one-by-one by metal claw, heavy snowfall, and winds that bit harsher than the most rabid of wolves. By the time the King had safely led his pack away from the oncoming storm that would overtake their home-- their numbers had dwindled terribly, and continued to do so as they traveled further and further in search of new territory to make their own.
Long since have the humans of his pack died out- to illness, starvation, metal claws and teeth wielded by their own kind, the wrath of gods not seeking to permit safe passage of a wanderer and his people. Forced further and further south did their numbers dwindle further as creatures of the arctic were forced to fall behind, lest they otherwise succumb to a climate inhospitable to them. Now, all that remains of the King’s pack is his mount, a massive white bear of the north, and several wolves.
With no people to protect, and nothing but his vengeance in mind, does the King of Beast continue to roam Teyvat; Moving from one place to the next on his eternal hunt, not for territory nor for prey itself, but rather for an opening-- a chance to return to the north and reclaim the land that is rightfully his own from the tyrant that has overtaken it.
NOTES:
- Though the beast king has a given name, it is... merely a series of growls and grunts. The God of the Forge has granted him the nickname ‘Riga’, as it is the closest human approximation to what his ‘name’ sounds like. Otherwise, most simply call him ‘The Hunters God’ , ‘The Beast King’-- Though merely ‘King’, ‘Beast’, or ‘Hunter’ are equally appropriate names that he will respond to.
- He does still take humans into his pack, should they be strong enough and should they be willing. Strength, of course, means little to him once you are actually a part of his pack; For he will never abandon his pack members, nor seek to put them in harms way for his own gain.
- Contrary to his modern counterpart, The Beast King has no issues around animals-- in fact, he himself is at times far more animal than human. He communicates with them with ease and clarity- far more than he can with humans, truly. This is why the bulk of his pack will nearly always be animals.
- The Beast King exhibits several inhuman traits-- including being quite tall ( 7′3″, specifically ), growling when he speaks, being capable of purring, and ... generally being rather animalistic in his mannerisms and habits.
- He is very, very, VERY old. He does not recall specifically how old he is, but tales of him have circulated for many thousands years prior to the archon war- meaning this fucker? Old as all goddamn.
- He wears a polar bear skull on his head incase anyone was wondering. It’s wrapped in rope, and the rope is adorned with teeth, antlers, bird feathers- trophies from some of his hunts. Aside from this he is adorned primarily in furs and leathers- all things he himself as hunted.
- He is missing one ear, as well as half of the pinkie on his left hand
- In far older times, he was referred to as the god of stormclouds; This is a title that has fallen into obscurity in favor of labeling him god of the hunt; Though note that he does still wield electro-based powers, as... unrefined as they may be.
okay , i am on !! that means i’ll be answering some things , writing out some starters and ... possibly make that permanent starter call thing . i have a few verses i will want to be working on but i’ll be making a rough outline for them in this post , just so i can touch up sometime later this week. these verses are :
m/ha -- b/hna : hero name ( wolf boy or razor ) ; quirk ( lupus minor / little wolf or thundering/lightning/electro wolf or lupical -- still haven’t decided on the quirk name but it’ll be an emitter type where like a ghost like animorphic wolf spirit aids him in a fight , very similar to how it does in genshin )
b/na ( b/rand new animal ) : wolf beastman ( a reverse to genshin where instead of being human raised by wolves , he’s a wolf beastman raised by loving humans who lived very isolated from human crowded areas ( a small little cottage ) but also away from anima city )
d/emon slayer ( k/ny ) : a human boy raised by wolves that eventually fell victim to demons , baring the scars left on him as he tried to save what was left of his family . his demon slaying style and breathing is similar to inosuke’s , although razor’s derives from the thunder breathing technique , making his own stylen known as wolf breathing . he’s quite fond of shinobu and mitsuri .
modern : done with high school , he helps lend a hand in a small quaint restaurant that lets him practice his own take on dishes due to the owner (adoptive father ) . having no idea who his biological parents were , having been raised by wolves for a good portion of his life , it took some getting used to human customs and the works but his adoptive parent had all the patience in the world with . some people have trouble with reading razor but he means no harm at all , unless you hurt those close to him .
purebreed (dog) beastman -- true blood (dog) beastman / bore a hatred for humans, believing his kin to be far superior and strong believer to keeping the bloodline pure (only deeming dog beastmen as a potential partner).
transcendent beastman
with the strong influence of humans running the world, much to his disdain, he would make use of his human form-- to prove, in his own way, that he can do what they can do but better
there had been one incident where someone had been investigating him and figured out his true identity. they had him cornered, nearly left him for dead until he succumbed to his rage and hatred-- leaving no witnesses or so he thought. there had been one human girl that stumbled upon the scene but she was worried more for him than for herself. an act of genuine kindness, though he suspected her at first, he seen she was a rarity. she didn’t see him for the beastman he was nor even fear him. she stayed with him until he was fully recovered and in due time, he took her as his own child.
ceo of tashio corps -- his very own company, possessing a wealthy influence in the human world while keeping his true identity a tight lid secret. he donates a handsome amount of money to anima city, his own way of making life for fellow beastmen better and richer, one step at a time.
has a home in anima city, where he travels in his natural beastman form-- how he prefers it.
VERSES ! it’s taking me more than i anticipated to make a carrd for the aus i’ve planned, so here’s what i have so far :
MAIN — follows the show’s events. arcs : pre - season 1, during season 1 & 2, coverage of the three years lost, in between texas & san francisco, where klaus somehow starts a fkn cult. WON’T be doing sparrow academy yet, i still have a lot to figure out, ‘cause i feel sparrow!klaus is a whole different character and idk if i’m into that. if we plot, i guess umbrella!klaus could be thrown in the sparrow!verse and deal with all the craziness of duplicates [ ??? ].
TLOU ( joint verse with horrorbled & limitknown ! ) — follows the events of season 1 until five jumps them all back in time, except they not only jump in time but they a) jump forward b) to another dimension. where an infection has spread and . . . zombies ! but no super-humans 😔, so it’s a surprise when a scrawny kid ( kid in his 30s is still a kid ) still going through withdrawal starts talking about seeing the dead trapped inside the infected. it’s torturous but he eventually finds out how to use it to his advantage. side effect : no one really takes him seriously, and everyone thinks he’s just nuts. but that’s also what happens in the show so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
THE OLD GUARD ( work in progress with curvedaim ! ) — yay he is eternal ! he’s from the 60′s, dies and is “reborn” so he starts a cult. which is short-lived cause he keeps having vivid dreams about people like him. unlike the show, the hargreeves aren’t all adopted by reginald, they find each other through time and stick together, fighting in the shadows for what they believe humanity should be. reginald is the one who wants to cage them and experiment with them ( which . . . any resemblance to the show is purely coincidental 🙄 ).
• he’s not good at hand-to-hand combat, he’s becomes a good fkn sniper tho.
• he’s v tired of the life they have, he just wants it all to end tbh.
HOGWARTS ( the lovely stagcharmed helped me with this so i’m setting it in the marauders era ) — reginald adopted ( bought ) seven kids who oh so happened to be wizards. he trained them with all the knowledge they needed to be excellent in the famous wizarding school when their letters arrived. klaus got sorted into hufflepuff, he has a nick for clairvoyance, though he’s not really into it.
• reginald is still the villain, pretty sure he has dirty businesses with voldy, maybe they play tennis on the weekends. idk. still haven’t figure that out.
VERSES TO BE ADDED : thohh — horror / crime — 90s
i’m open for plotting if anyone is interested in a different au or something idk ! i’m here for it 😘
before mara moved etheria to despondos, before the stars were lost, a magical immortal being and her friends came to the planet. pink diamond, one of the rulers of the planet homeworld was dissatisfied with her life, and the way her fellow diamonds were attempting to take over all life on surrounding planets, that she chose to flee, wanting to create a new life for herself and some friends on etheria.
once they passed through the portal, the stars were lost, and it was evident that none of them would ever be able to return to their homeworld, and they would never be reached by the other diamonds. choosing to settle into their life, pink took on the nomiker of rose quartz, and began to establish a small kingdom known as crystopia, where she took on the role of princess to protect those who seek shelter. while the princesses of etheria draw power from their runestones, rose and the gems draw power from smaller ‘runestones’ held within their body, the source of their immortality and magical abilities.
when rose met an etherian named greg, she fell in love, and chose to have a child. the child was draining the magic from her runestone, and in order to give birth, to not drain both herself and give steven a chance to survive, she transferred her runestone, her ‘gem’, to him. doing this resulted in rose’s death, and steven inherited the kingdom in her stead.
with the aid of garnet, amethyst, and pearl, steven is hoping to become the best leader of crystopia that he can be, but has inherited the war against the horde. he has all of his mother’s powers drawn from the magic of the runestone in his body - and the pressure is a lot for the fourteen year old to handle, but.. he refuses to let them down.
before the dawn of man and pokemon, all that existed in the black void of space were two entities, cosmos and chaos. they were two sides of the same coin, destined opposing forces forever intertwined in one another’s fates in order to maintain the balance between light and darkness, life and death, and so on. their clashes would eventually crack the cosmic egg that would bring forth their first born, arceus: the alpha and the original one. the mythical pokemon would go forth to form the creation trio and shape the universe into what it is today, creating both mankind and pokemon alike out of the image of its ‘parents’ so that every living being had the duality of light and darkness inside of their hearts.
as generations have passed, stories of a sacred plane only inhabited by pokemon have spread. many have attempted to find it and many have failed as the way into the great mother’s home can only be seen by abandoned, hurt, and mistreated pokemon. if one should ever find their way into her palace via an ultra wormhole, they would find a sanctuary where pokemon never want or suffer.
her ‘team’.
as the mother to all, cosmos has no need ( nor any desire ) to use or carry pokeballs. her children are nearly always by her side, lovingly trailing behind her wherever she may go and if they aren’t - all she must do is speak their name and they will simply come to her. as for a team, she has no team - at least not in the typical trainer sense. she lives with a plethora of different pokemon, however, she would not make any of them fight. they’ve come to her for sanctuary and the promise of peace. if one should be so adamant about challenging her ( and losing ) then they would find themselves up against the very ‘eldest’ of her children:
xerneas - if mother cosmos were to have a favorite ‘child’, xerneas would certainly be it. the pokemon is the closest to fully embodying her will, desires, and love of life. its relationship with yveltal is a parallel to cosmos and chaos’s own relationship.
lunala - the mother’s light shines upon this one well. lunala has been by its mother’s side nearly as long as xerneas. on the nights of a full moon, lunala opens its third eye to open a portal to its home, his mother’s palace, to lead frightened pokemon to safety.
cresselia - said to bring joy and good dreams to those in her presence, cresselia acts as ‘big sister’ to those seeking shelter in her mother’s home.
mew - despite being one of the oldest of her children, mew is quite childish, playful, and enjoys snuggling with his mother. it’s always gone from home for long stretches of time but once it returns, it’s never empty handed: often bringing toys and often gifts for its siblings.
espeon - while not a rare or legendary pokemon, espeon shares a bond with his mother that transcends the bond of an ordinary trainer and pokemon. due to the heightened physic abilities maintained in the pokemon’s gem, the two share strong a telepathic link with one another.
dragonite - legends, or what some would call tall tales, of a woman on the back of a unusually large dragonite have spread across the various regions of the world. many sailors have claimed to be rescued by the elusive woman but no further evidence of such a person has been found and therefore all stories of her have been written off as merely myths.
initially i was simply going to post her ‘team’ but figured i would all the way while i had the time. on my old blog, i originally planned for her to be from ultra space and ended up being lost in alola after falling out of a wormhole but decided to drop that idea for a variety of reasons. after reading about arceus being born from an egg, this feels more fitting as it reminded me of my xv verse which had a similar backdrop of ancient beings ‘cracking’ the cosmic egg. art credit. / template credit.
tell me god, are you punishing me? is this the price i'm paying for my past mistakes? i need you more than ever right now. can you hear me now? the answer is no.
fighting evil by the moonlight and winning love by daylight ! known far and wide across the galaxy under the codename sailor moon, tsukino usagi was once your average, lazy, and ultimately ordinary middle school student...at least until a mysterious cat follows her home. it isn’t long after their fateful meeting that her life is forever changed when her persona, selene, finally awakens from within her out of usagi’s desire to protect her best friend, naru, from shadows that had attacked her mother’s jewelry store. once the girl was safe and sound, usagi learns that the cat is named luna who informs usagi that there are other girls just like her waiting to awoken as a senshi. slowly but surely each girl is found until the team of nine become known as the sailor senshi among citizens of tokyo.
the group were responsible for the destruction of many shadows that terrorized the streets of tokyo in the early nineties, however, they were eventually unprepared for their newest and greatest threat: shadow galactica. led by the destructive sailor galaxia, the sailor animamates ran amok across the galaxy, stealing the persona’s of other sailor senshi ( a process that ended the original host’s life ) before eventually setting their sights on earth. completely unprepared for such ruthless and calculating foes, her friends lives are snatched away instantly yet when finding herself almost at rock bottom, usagi finds that all is not lost like she thinks. through the help of a trio of senshi that had escaped to earth along with their princess, usagi learns of sagittarius zero star and the galaxy cauldron that waited beyond - as well as galaxia.
there at the birthplace of all stars, she confronts senshi of destruction in order to restore her friends and their battle ends when usagi delivers a fatal blow to galaxia’s chest. as the woman lays dying, it is then that usagi learns the truth: galaxia was ultimately just a puppet for the demiurge ( otherwise known as yaldabaoth ), a chaotic being who was feeding on the stolen personas in order to revive himself in the galaxy cauldron. in her desire ( or more accurately, desperation ) to avoid facing her fears of being alone, the girl makes a plea to the stars before throwing herself into the cauldron. as her faithful persona comes to her aide one last time, usagi commands the power of not only selene but the dormant personas inside of the cauldron to help defeat the demiurge and stop his impending rebirth. however, something else happens during this event as well. her persona begins to undergo a metamorphosis into its ultimate form as a reaction to usagi’s resolve which triggers a fusion with the dormant personas and usagi who is caught in-between.
her body burns, her mind shatters, and her soul is torn asunder...all before she is neatly pieced back together again. she has been reborn in the depths of the cauldron, something far more alien and foreign now as she emerges from the sea of stars. she is whole for the first time in her life. tsukino usagi is dead and the woman left behind is cosmos. declared missing and eventually presumed dead, her face has been forgotten under the countless other missing person signs during the twenty years she has wandered the galaxy. despite the vast power she commands, she’s still searching, still hungry, for one single item: the universe arcana.
details of note:
1. while a fusion with a persona of a higher level typically causes the persona to posses the host, the sheer number of personas usagi fused with at once made it impossible for one to posses her. instead the process permanently changes her both physically and mentally ( ex. she grows taller, her hair turns permanently whiter/silver, personality change, becoming mentally unstable, etc. ). she doesn’t summon a persona as she has essentially become her ultimate persona, cosmos.
2. while initially represented by the empress arcana, her arcana becomes the hanged man after her ‘ascension’ / metaphorical rebirth: a card associated with self-sacrifice for the sake of enlightenment, the bindings that makes one free, paradoxes and hanging between heaven and earth.
3. her original costume as sailor moon was highly similar to her prototype design from the manga ( aside from the cape ). she originally wielded a colt 45 caliber pistol as her ranged weapon along with various staffs / rods for melee weapons. as an adult, she wields a katana and a pump-action shotgun for melee and ranged attacks respectively. she is not a god despite her vast amount of powers which is why she highly desires the universe arcana, a card that allows the wielder reshape the universe.
4. she is a mother in this verse as during the twenty years she was ‘missing’, she created and gave birth to a son named archisei. in her eyes, he is perfection and she’s grooming him to help her reshape the universe. although the reality is that he’s not perfect. far from it actually as 1). he’s created from her, someone that’s not right™ anymore and 2). he may or may not be another reincarnation of the demiurge, the same being that she once killed, as it has multiple forms / different methods of being reborn. she may or may not be aware of this but at this point, usagi’s mentally gone / locked away and the woman in her body doesn’t really care about such things.
she returns to earth only because she senses the light of another, a child named yukine, who is possibly the future holder of the universe arcana. intending to use the child to get what she’s desired after so many years, she plays the part of the kind, caring adoptive mother as she patiently waits for them to awaken their true power so she take their arcana for herself ━━ by force even if she has to.
5. her palace is highly similar to the palace / chapel found at the galaxy cauldron. each floor is immaculate and incredibly pristine while the shadows that roam its halls have the appearance of the servants and handmaidens who would attend to a queen. as one moves up each floor to reach her, that’s when things begin to warp / become increasingly chaotic to represents her state of mind: the clash between the girl she once was, the woman she currently is, and the goddess she desires to become.
this is a canon-divergent verse for persona. this verse is primarily based around events after the fifth game with details from other games in the series as well as the shin megami tensei series incorporated into it as well. in shin megami tensei nine, the gnostic goddess, sophia, gives birth to the demiurge and eventually helps the protagonist to defeat him after falling from grace. cosmos is the equivalent of a very corrupted sophia that not only doesn’t feel remorse for the birth / creation of her son but actively encourages him to embrace what he is so she can eventually get what she wants. art credit.
