independent ✦ selective ✦ private fandomless oc
[ warning for mentions of insects, parasites, and body horror ]
basics.
| Name: Bernita Allard, but please, just call her Bernita. |
| Age: in her early twenties, about 23. |
| Race: human… ish. |
| Pronouns: she/her |
| Sexuality: lesbian. |
| Role: envoy of the parasite gods. [ Dark Tapestry oracle, sort of ] |
| ↳ Curse: the touch of the parasites lingers on her body; her left eye is now compound and slightly larger than the other, her right arm covered in black chitinous plating, ending in a four fingered, clawed hand. When struck, her blood is thick and gooey, cold as the void. Prone to regurgitating and coughing black substance from time to time. |
| Clothing style: anything good at hiding her upper body. Cloaks are favored, long and wide scarves will do. |
| Weaponry: just a small knife, barely used, and her very own claws if she must. Ultimately, she is no fighter. |
PHYSICAL.
| Height: 176cm / 5'9'' |
| Weight: 56kg / 123lb |
| Build: lanky and skinny, with barely any muscle. |
| Skin: chalky, sickly white, with freckles across her shoulders and face. |
| Face: oval. A few thorn-like protrusion emerge from the skin on her left cheek, under the eye. |
| Voice: low and hushed, with the inflection of someone terribly anxious. Frequently stuttering, even at her most relaxed. |
| Eyes: the right one is brown, exhaustion purpling the skin surrounding it. The left one is insect-like, compound and yellow. Generally kept somewhat covered by hair. |
| Hair: straight and light brown, reaching the middle of her back. Brittle and frail. |
| Other: her noticeably inhuman right arm. Generally kept bent and hidden under her cloak. |
ABILITIES.
Blessed and cursed by a parasitic alien hivemind accidentally ascended to godhood- wow, that’s a lot- Bernita’s powers encompass the domain of the void between stars, cold and dark, dreams and illusions. While this makes her indeed a powerful ally, the way she was simply gifted those skills without prior practice means she doesn’t have full control of them yet. This is made even worse by the fact that her gods, too, don’t know entirely what they’re doing either.
Black tentacles: an eldritch classic. Spawns black, rubbery tentacles to bind her foes.Ask, and you might receive: Bernita can “meditate” to send her mind where her alien patrons reside, to ask them questions. Not her favourite thing to do. They’re always delighted by her visits, on the other side.Void manipulation: it’s cold and dark among stars; she can bring a slice of her patrons’ home to you. Through touch, she can chill and blind; gift a cloak of darkness to hide someone better in shadows; and if she truly has no other choice, she can bring the silence of space in a room- a silence so utter that it severs contact with any creature near her and their gods, as long as she can maintain the effort. After all, you know how it goes: nobody in space can hear you scream.
There goes gravity: again, in an area no wider than a small room, she can reverse the local gravity, forcing whatever is not anchored to the ground to fall upward.Darkvision: thanks, awful insect eye(s, it’s made of many small ones)
PRAISE US? PRAISE US?
Bernita’s patrons are young. One voice shared in a swarm, they were originally eldritch parasites, attaching themselves to leviathans that swam between stars and sundered reality. It so happens they burrowed inside a god. It so happens that the god in question died, too old and sapped of too much life to survive. It so happens that full of its blood and prayers as ticks, the parasites swelled- became something more than leeches- and to their surprise, they now were too gods. Well, sort of.
Like a swarm of mosquitos suddenly becoming human, they too don’t know the extent of their abilities, but the euphoria of the new state is much. And what is it that all gods worth the name have?
Someone that prays for them. A priest. Faithful.
For reasons only their own, they chose Bernita for this role. In their own way they love her; so much they wish to claim her as one of them, one day, when she will be ready. Needless to say, Bernita needs to rid herself of those space pests before that happens. But how?
DRAW THE SHORTEST STRAW
Beloved only daughter of a merchant mother and a writer father, Bernita was since very young the sort who felt the overwhelming feeling of occupying space in the wrong way. Anxious, prone to stutters, she’d often pick the safety of the four walls of her house over the terrifying perspective of interacting with people. You can’t be judged for a social misstep, for being a boring presence, if you don’t interact with others at all! What a simple solution. Too bad that this didn’t stifle the desire for friendship, and as they say, you can’t get a chance to win a game if you don’t play at all.
Despite the relative solitude, she still lived a sheltered, easy life. Her family had money; food wasn’t lacking; her parents, if sometimes strict, still truly loved her. A good existence, all considered.
It is around her twentieth birthday that the nameless parasite gods above choose her as their envoy. It is in her dreams that they appear, buzzing wings and joyful laughter, flaccid bodies and chitinous plating and many jointed limbs, countless eyes and snapping mandibles; that they embrace her to gift their blessing. Gods bless their chosen. Is it not what they do? This is generosity, to them. This is love.
When she wakes up, her left eye and right arm are human no more, now insectoid and monstrous.
Her mother and father try their all to help her. They call clerics, they call mages, they call anyone willing to take a look at the half-insect, cursed daughter and pay them enough to keep their mouth shut on what they see. But they spend and call and weep and no cure arrives, so one night the young woman makes up her mind; she’ll leave, and find a solution on her own. The wretched bugs keep telling her she should explore the world and bring the good news of their existence anyway.
She writes a letter to her parents- leaves it on the kitchen’s table- and since then, Bernita Allard has been gone.
Years of travelling later, and still cursed, Bernita is now more aware of her powers, more skilled in wielding them. As profoundly unhappy of being a half-insect half-human being as she is, and always seeking to return to a normal life, she can’t say this has been all entirely bad. She’s learned much; she’s made some friends. Visited places she otherwise would have never seen.
It would be just fantastic to get rid of those gods, though. It would really make her day.
