Lerna

» Name: Lerna
» Titles: Yamato No Orochi
» Age: 560
» Gender: Female Presenting

» Affiliation/Rank: None

» Physical Appearance Description: In her base form, Lerna takes the form of a small 3cm wide sphere. Perfectly round and slightly translucent though the inside of her sphere is milky and has what appears to be the fang of an animal embedded into the very center of her. The cloudy red which spreads from this trapped item forms small nebulous swirls around it spiraling outward to the very surface of her pill.

Lerna’s body of choice is a short, 5’3” human woman with a curvy, toned build. Her hair does tend to switch between blonde and black depending on her mood, and sometimes a mix of the two. But in any case she keeps her hair in a wild mess. On rare occessions she will cut braid it, but for the most part she keeps it wild and a bit unkempt save for some sparing brushing to keep it from getting unbearable.

In this form, she generally decorates herself with winding tattoos along her body consisting fo small black dots forming long lines which end in black serpent heads with their mouths open and fangs bared. In the very center of her navel just above her bellybutton she also generally keeps a small four pointed star marking.

» Physical Appearance Image:



» Personality:
Lerna is aggressive. Passionate among all other things even in situations where it might not be the best course of action. Despite being BORN of such a careful and insidious creature, Lerna is actually more of a bright and optimistic individual than anything else, often finding a bright side to many situations.

Because of this, she can be rather annoying and even pesky to those who don't enjoy the sunny attitude she brings to the table. Though this level of radiance is often overshadowed by just how highly she thinks of herself. Prissy and a bit of a princess, that optimism very often comes with it's fair share of unintentional insults and unmitigated pity towards natural beings who she sees as inferior to herself. Even amidst pain, torture, and threat of death: Lenra will find a way to take pride in herself.

» Likes: Pampering herself, Slaying Hollows, Showing off, Spicy Foods, Physical Contact.

» Dislikes: Boastful People (other than herself of course), Bland foods, Boring landscapes, Vegetables, Apologizing Sincerely, Facial Hair. Demons.




» History

There are many long memories within Lerna, memories of a history that far outpaces her own literal recollection of her life and existence after her creation. But so far as she remember, it started like this:

She was born in what felt like water. She knew nothing but the dark waves around her, a swath of emptiness that smothered and deafened. There was nothing around her until there was suddenly something. Small little bits of matter that slowly began to collect and press in on her. Like sand in the depths of the ocean collecting on a cohesive surface, sedimenting around her. And when the pressure proved to be too great, she felt strength coil and writhe within her body.

She broke free from those crushing depths, and when she emerged into the world she saw it through many eyes. Though her mind was …. simpler back then. Everything was a blur of sensations and stimuli, a sea of pain, aggression, emotion, and blood as those many heads did not have the size or complexity to construct memories. But that wasn’t the case forever.

Her first memory was of a man. A savage, beast of a man, who wielded flames and chunks of earth in such a terrifying way. A man who was said to be divine, burning her, crushing her. For the first time in all of her existence: she had to FIGHT to survive. She had to adapt. She had to LIVE. And when she was buried under boulders and chunks of rock, she remembered struggling. Squirming. Fighting with all she had to peel herself out from under that tomb that had been built around her.

And when she emerged, she was a shell of her former self. Blinded, weakened, she could barely smell and she had to rely mostly on feel to get around. But in this suffering she learned the importance of adaptation. To hunt. To stalk. She learned to return to where she hunted. And it was in this way that she devoured Seven of the Eight Indra Maidens before she was attacked and driven off by a man who smelled of thunder and storms.

She learned to fake death, to shed not just her skin but her flesh so that she could avoid death. But ultimately, it was not to be. That damned man that smelled of a hurricane managed to best her. And in the muddled memories of drunkenness, she remembered his blade swinging down eight times, until her mind went blank for good.

These were the memories of the Terrible Orochi, left inert by a shinigami and taken back to soul society. Even though the heads were not growing back, it’s body refused to die. No matter what they tried they could not get it to die properly, it's body thrashing and attacking everything around it. Ultimately the decision was made to seal the beast in the Mugen until a proper means of killing it could be found.

It wasn't until later during the beginnings of the mod soul project that the Orochi would come into play. The production of completely artificial souls was an undertaking that included research into souls in general, and how new souls came into existence through the mingling of two existing souls, and in some instances beings seemed to simply pop up all on their own!

It was through this research that the Soul society experimented with some prototypes in order to properly shape a soul, artificial or otherwise, into the pill. It was Orochi who was chosen as one of the initial subjects for researching this process. Countless times, bits of the beast were shaved off and altered in an attempt to perfect not only the compression of a soul into a pill, but a mechanism through which that pill would be able to interact with the body they were placed into.

Eventually, these experiments bore fruit: Lerna. Through these experiments, they discovered that these shavings from Orochi's body had agency, similar to how when injured the beast would produce a new head and the rest of it's body, even these shavings would try to regrow into a full orochi, though these chunks of flesh did not have the energy or mass in order to accomplish this. Ultimately, it was Orochi's bones that were ultimately used and studied, producing an individual soul, though some of the researchers argued whether the product would be considered an offspring of the beast, or was in fact the beast itself. All the same, this research contributed to the knowledge which ultimately culminated into the creation of artificial souls.

And in the mad scrabble that saw so many of her brethren scattered through the human world. There she waited, until she was come upon by a poor and starving human. Mistaking her for candy, the human attempted to chew her, and when they failed, swallowed her whole instead. It was in this way that she stole her first body: A living one. The human she had wound up in was old, dying in fact. Lerna felt nothing when she broke the human’s chain of fate herself, damning them to hollowfication and leaving with her new physical form. However, she could hardly be satisfied with her situation. Living in the decrepit body of an old woman was hardly something she was keen on maintaining. Especially as the situation in the world of the living progressed.

While she was still trapped in an older body, she found that her serpentine qualities kept the stolen body from aging further. She even found that by shedding her skin, she was able to slowly rid herself of the old, decaying flesh that resulted in her elderly appearance, and over time the body which had once been a shaky shamble was soon restored to it's prime condition as if she were a woman in her twenties. \

However, the world wasn't simply holding still around her. The general population was becoming increasingly aware of the spiritual world and initially Lerna sought to stay away from it all. However, when the first Major Spiritual war (World War 3) took place, it became abundantly clear that she wouldn't simply be able to just separate herself from the world as she was forced to go into hiding to try and avoid the destruction.

Once the war had settled somewhat she began to train herself, going out of her way to hunt hollows and learn more about her abilities. When the Fourth World War came to pass, this time she was more prepared. Rather than cowering as the world around her was obliterated. Once the Fourth World War began, she began to rove around the countries of India and China, actively hunting down anything that seemed to be endangering the local humans. However it was not as simple as she had thought. For all of the training that she had gone through, each and every fight was tough and brutal, and she found that it was NOT in her own strength that she managed to win, but the sheer ability she had to continue fighting despite injury that she managed to take out the demons that she ran into, and worst of all, they didn't seem to be particularly powerful ones at that.

Finally she ran into a decent opponent, and even her tenacity didn't keep her from being almost obliterated. Savak Arut, a demon on the level of a shinigami Lieutenant, managed to stop Lerna's rampage with relative ease, reducing her physical body to little more than a torso, she was humiliated and left for dead in a pile of rubble after the demon finished slaughtering the humans nearby.

While Lerna had no emotional attachment to the humans that were slain, she still felt a deep and unacceptable injury to her pride. While she didn't care about protecting humans, she had protected them out of ... a whim. And perhaps some small sentimental attachment to the humans which provided goods and services that she very much enjoyed. Having the beings that allowed her to maintain her relatively lax lifestyle turned into people paste was not something she tolerated. And even more, the cruel manner in which the humans were killed felt like an insult to her capabilities as a fighter. She would not allow some hellpuke to humiliate her like this.

It was well past the end of the Third World War that she managed to repair her body to the point of being able to move again. With all the humans dead and not being able to show herself to the shinigami she was forced to rely on herself in order to persevere, and her stubbornness kept her from simply finding a new body. For months she managed to get her body back into proper shape before she began to focus her training. Unable to perform the massive spiritual feats that the demons were capable of, she instead focused on her physical body, training her own speed, strength, and self-reinforcement to turn herself into the juggernaut she had once been as an Orochi.

Not feeling that she was ready, Lerna remained distant from the events of the Fourth World War, focusing only on defending herself from the demonic forces which came to her, and even avoiding conflicts that she felt she could not win, telling herself that she was saving her energy for killing the demon that had humiliated her so long ago. But that opportunity never presented itself. Even as she ran into the demon forces on several occasions, she failed to find the demon she was hunting, and as a result she actually wound up avoiding most of the major conflicts of the Fourth World War outside of some small skirmishes.

Soured by her inability to avenge her ego, Lerna began to develop a deep distaste for Demons in general, but began to open herself up to the spiritual world. Deciding that she wouldn't be able to just hide from her past forever, she decided to stop hiding and simply live her life. Ultimately she would likely have to interact with the shinigami. There was no reason to believe there wouldn't be a World War Five, and when it happened, they were the organization she felt would most likely lead her to her prey.



» Equipment:



» Skills:

Mod Root The basis for all Mod Soul abilities and how Mod Souls Function. Designed originally to be placed into human corpses as expendible shock troopers, these roots are designed to be injected into a physical medium, at which point the mod soul will inject it's soul into the surrounding material and then possess and modify it into a proper body. This function was originally intended to allow the mod soul to occupy and utliize a corpse which on it's own would have no actual means of locomotion, let alone combat ability.

However, as an unintended byproduct, this ability allows Mod Souls not only to occupy physical bodies of living creatures, but also occupy physical vessels which have no actual means of motion or other function, and there are numerous examples of Mod Souls being placed into inanimate objects even as simple as a stuffed toy (primarily just cotton fibers) and being able to modify them into a fully functioning body, though these examples do often suffer inferior physical performance to human bodies. However, this is mainly due to most Mod Souls only being limited to their pre-programmed execution of this function, and with growth, practice, and learning about how this ability functions: a mod soul will be able to make any vessel perform well beyond it's normal limitations. At higher levels of expertise, a Mod Soul does not even need an actual physical vessel, and can simply make one by overriding the base function and treating it's immediate surroundings as a 'vessel' and simply remodel it into a working functioning vessel.

Because of this injection of spiritual energy, a Mod soul’s vessel is considered a halfway point between living and dead as it is comprised of both Physical and Spiritual material. Because of this, organs and other normally vital areas are mostly superfluous, a Mod Soul’s only vital point is their Pill.

Untrained: The Mod Soul is capable only of using the pre-programmed version of this ability. They can inhabit any sufficiently body-like vessel and convert it into a workable body, though the body will generally function at a capacity restricted to the materials used, and augmenting is more or less nonexistant outside of Programmed Mod Abilities that involve physical augment.

Beginner: The Mod Soul is capable of converting their vessel of choice with some more freedom. In addition to inhabiting the vessel, they can also somewhat repair it over time by using existing mass and structures (A doll could be 'repaired' by moving around some of it's mass, whereas an organic body would be able to utilize it's natural healing as if it were alive).

Adept: The Mod Soul begins learning how to better alter their physical vessel. In addition to making makeshift repairs or utlizing built-in recovery, they are able to start creating unique modifications to their body on the fly. They may create a Root Ability, which is a power which alters some aspect of their body to perform some function or benefit that their physical shell would not normally be able to perform. This also allows them to freely control their vessel's outward appearance.

Advanced: The Mod Soul's ability to modify their form not only increases, but the limits of what constitutes a 'physical shell' begin to broaden. In addition to suitably body-like shells, Mod Souls gain the ability to inject their roots into their environment and simply MAKE a body for themselves by possessing nearby matter and modifying it to the point of functioning as their body. These forms tend to be weak, and as such a newly-made vessel will generally function at 2 levels below the user's usual in terms of Power Tier and Skills for 4 posts, at which point the makeshift body will still function with skills and Tier reduced by 1 level until they can find a proper vessel. At this level, the process is also very taxing and can considerably exhaust a mod soul if it is done in combat as if they were fighting at full force for hours. It can only be performed once per thread.

Elite: At this level, Mod Souls gain the ability to learn a second Root Ability, adding another function/utility which can be applied to their vessel. Additionally, their ability to simply make themselves a vessel out of something not already suited for one increases. Their weakened state is reduced to 2 posts at 2 levels below, and 2 posts at 1 level below before their new vessel can operate as full capacity. The energy needed to perform this task is also reduced to the equivalent of a couple hours of strenuous physical activity. This can be performed twice per thread.

Master: Upon reaching this level, Mod Souls can learn up to Four total Root Abilities. Also, their ability to simply create a vessel for themselves is almost instantaneous, with only a single post in which they operate at 1 level below their usual tier and skills before reaching full operating capacity. This process also is much less tiring, similar to about half an hour of strenuous exercise. This can be performed up to three times per thread.

Grand Master: The ultimate for Mod Souls. Not only are they able to create a new vessel instantly with almost no strain (equivalent of a warmup exercise), they require no time to reach full strength. Mod souls of this caliber are incredibly hard to kill as they can simply make a new body for themselves up to four times per thread and with almost no energy drain. Beyond making proper vessels, Mod Souls of this caliber can even inject their Roots into theior environment and briefly treat it as if it were a part of their current vessel, allowing broad manipulation of the environment within a limited area (determined by Power Tier).



Origin Root A form of release for Mod Souls. By dragging in tremendous amounts of physical and/or spiritual material, they can transform the body they inhabit to greatly augment their abilities. This release amplifies their abilities by about Three Times their base state.

Root Shell An ability derived from Mod Root. This ability is utilized by Mod Souls to toughen their skin beyond normal concepts of durability by dragging in physical or spiritual material in their environment to reinforce their skin by integrating this material into it. A mod soul with Adept Mod Root ability can drag in ambient reishi and air molecules to reinforce their skin to be hard like leather. At Advanced they can further reinforce their body to be hard as slate or shale. At Elite they can make their body hard as iron as they gain the ability to drag in physical materials and layer them into their exterior. At Master and above, a Mod Soul can make their outer layer hard as a tank's armor plating.



» Powers:

The Orochi - Born from the bones of Yamato no Orochi, Lerna’s powers manifest as the projection of her soul into gaining snake/dragon-like projections and abilities as she grows.

Abilities:

Orochi Shedding In addition to her skin, Lerna is able to shed portions of her body and even massive portions of the body she is inhabiting. This process rids her of any injuries and negative effects that were localized to the area, and even injuries that normally would inhibit healing can simply be discarded.



Origin Root Appearance: In Origin Root Form, Lerna’s skin grows scaly along the dorsal surfaces of her spine and limbs as she transforms it into hard scales reinforced with her own reiryoku. In addition, she grows Eight 3 meter long tails as well as forward-curving horns on her head. She develops long retractable fangs and her teeth become considerably sharper than normal, whilst her nails grow into curved claws that are hollowed out like fangs.


Origin Root Abilities:

None




General Skills

• Durability: Adept
  
• General Speed: Advanced
  
• Strength: Advanced
  
• Martial Skill: Beginner
  

Mod Soul Reiatsu Sheet

• Power Control: Adept
  
• Energy Usage/Regeneration: Beginner
  
• Energy Resistance/Endurance: Beginner
  
• Mod Root: Advanced
  

Will Skills

• Willpower/Determination: Advanced
  
• Mental Deduction: Beginner
  
• Focus: Adept
  

» Role Play Sample:

END OF THE HUMAN APPLICATION