improvking | Heckin Navigation (Reply)

full name ?

alias Spirit of the Millennium Ring

age 3000+

d o b New Kingdom

zodiac unknown

pronouns he/him

hometown Ryou Bakura

occupation menace to society

the Ring-Spirit

He's cynical, spiteful and arrogant; but also playful and mischievous. He can have a fairly affable demeanor, but don't trust it. Sometimes he acts out of malice; and sometimes it's just impulsive dumbassery. He's also something of a tsundere, being in general quite the misanthrope but now and then getting attached to select individuals in his own fucked up way. While there's some cognitive dissonance between actually caring about anyone and the fact that his life's goal is literally destroying the world, uh, well... he kinda doesn't KNOW what his own goal is at the pull point I'm using. He's suffering from some magic amnesia that nigh blank-slated him about 3000 years back. It's only been the past single-digits' worth of years where he's had a host - and he's spent a great deal of that time still isolated, being unable to speak directly to said host. (While not exactly core aspects of his personality, he's coming in as pretty lonely and stir-crazy as a result.)

Also he's the soul-fusion of two other guys, an ancient Egyptian tombrobber and an evil god of darkness. While this does affect his existential status somewhat, he hasn't properly remembered it yet, so. Make of that what you will!

appearance

A three-dimensional shadow that strongly resembles Ryou Bakura's human form, save with slit-pupiled glowing golden eyes and the Millennium Ring affixed to his chest. Its prongs still dangle freely.

He doesn't cast a shadow.

height ~5'9"

build thin, pointy

eyes glowing gold

hair long

canon hmd inbox monster world

abilities

physical form New as of Heckin, the Ring-Spirit has a body! While generally shaped like Ryou Bakura's human body, it is comprised of solid shadow, which affords minor aesthetic shapeshifting (if in a very monochrome palette). His eyes glow now, and the central portion of the Millennium Ring is affixed to his chest. (The Ring is still metal.) Additionally, as he is a shadow, he doesn't cast one.

possessionIf someone touches the Ring and has enough personal magic power (aka "heka"), the Ring-Spirit can possess their body. He seems able to reference their memories and overhear their thoughts to some degree, but they can't hear him in return without the additional influence of the Millennium Puzzle. Normally when he takes over, the person he's possessed blacks out, but sometimes they can fight against his control. Downsides: if he tries to possess someone who doesn't have enough heka? They incinerate soul outwards. In canon, since he doesn't have a proper body and thus needs a host, this is actually a downside for him too - especially as the heka required to not combust is a lot.

In Heckin, the Ring is now attached to his body instead of being on a lanyard others can wear, so... idk, can he still possess people? Yes, with player permission - he can go incorporeal and possess their body for a short amount of time (as per player discussion); also if someone magically-powerful touches the Ring itself, he can try to influence them somehow (player discretion if it succeeds and whether he's noticed); and on the other hand, if someone with low levels of magic touches the Ring, they may get heartburn.

dowsing If he's looking for something specific, the dangling prongs of the Ring can usually point him in the right direction. They react most strongly to the presence of other Millennium Items, sometimes alerting him before he's aware there's an Item nearby, since finding those is one of the few things about his life's purpose that he sorta-kinda recalls.

shadow bolt He can summon and throw a wad of darkness which hits with enough force to knock someone off their feet. It has to be aimed like any traditional projectile, and can be dodged.

soul manipulationHe's able to chip off a bit of his own soul and infuse it into objects, which then grants him a certain degree of influence over that object. Canon examples are him hiding some of his consciousness inside the Millennium Puzzle as a type of spy, and him fixing dice rolls. He doesn't use this ability often as it literally chips away at his existence - while they remain nebulously connected to his will and awareness, he can't actually reclaim these bits of soul.

Something he does much more freely is steal other people's souls to embed into objects, BUT he can only do this to other people within the context of a Shadow Game - either as part of the game or as a penalty for losing. He also can't take apart others' souls the way he can his own. When he uses someone else's soul this way he transfers their consciousness as well as gaining power over the object's functionality (see: fixing dice).

I'd say that in Heckin he might be able to do something similar via contracts? Like "grant you control over this object" or "allow you to possess this other object", but it's not something he can just DO without consent anymore - ~~and also he can't chip up his own soul anymore even if he wants to. That ain't how souls work here buddy~~ he can still chop up his own soul if he wants for, whatever reasons; but needs player permission to gank another's soul outside of a shadow game*! He's free to fuck with any npc souls he wants tho.

* (see bottom of next ability)

shadow gamesThere might be a way to make these feasible in an rp setting? But I sure don't know how to make them work, so a little clamp goes on the Ring to nerf this away completely. However, for reference:

These are magic-enhanced games that allow the players to inflict penalties on whoever loses; these can range in severity from "hallucinations" to "death" and in supernaturalness from "this is just cause-and-effect" to "yeah that's definitely magic". They're the central conceit of the manga (that's right, not the card game!) but how these things work is never clearly explained???? They just happen, with only enough explanation for readers to follow the gameplay and worry about the stakes.

In canon, the Ring-Spirit generally uses Shadow Games to steal people's souls at his pull point; later on he switches to just killing people with them ~~probably because he got in trouble with Ryou for the soul collection~~. Shadow Games seem to primarily only be invokable by someone with a Millennium Item? (There's a couple exceptions though.) The Ring-Spirit is unique in that he seems to be essentially immune to repercussions of losing a Shadow Game: he gets ejected from his current host, and that's it. In canon, eventually a piece of his soul that he'd chipped off loses its own Shadow Game and that does kill the chipped-off piece as well as the feedback making the primary Ring-Spirit feel pain; and there's always a risk of his host getting damaged by a Shadow Game, but uh. ...The evil god part of the Ring-Spirit is the thing that powers all Shadow Games, so that's probably the reason for him getting off so lightly.

* (If anyone can figure out how to make these work, a-okay to do if the other player is on board! They'd be like a High Stakes contract basically, where instead of the other dying they end up having to fulfill a contract with RS. If it's a low stakes game, feel free to dump them somewhere in hell if they lose, like a tarpit or firepit. Probably they will be okay and can pick up their burnt body and go home. If one of the stakes wagered IS true death, that's fine too as long as all parties agree.)

permissions

ooc - Backtagging: yes please!

BUT sometimes I assume a thread is done before it actually is, so feel free to poke me if you're still waiting on my dumb ass for something.

- Threadjacking: yes!!

- Fourthwalling: no thank you

- Sensitive Topics:

I'm generally squicked by poop, auto-cannibalism, and depictions of graphic eye trauma.
I'd prefer to avoid poop period (including toilet humor), but the other two I just request a heads up.
Thanks!

ic - Fighty Stuff: ok!

^ Minor Injury: ok!
^ Major Injory: probably fine, but ask first
^ Death: probably fine, but ask first

- Mindreading: ok! lmk tho, so I can work with you

He thinks pretty "loudly" and is ridiculously susceptible to mindreading actually. He has a strong will, he's just very tuned into mental communication. If you don't advertise your presence, he likely won't even notice someone's listening.

- Romancey Stuff: ok!

^ Relationship: ok, though he probably won't be looking; and tbh if you don't tell me you're interested in shipping I might not notice hints,,

^ FTB: if the thread naturally heads that way, ok; I'll leave it to your comfort level whether he counts as "vaguely a teen, just for a longass time" or "thousands of years old fr tho"

^ Smut: no, I don't rp smut out

warnings

The Ring-Spirit's backstory deals with possession, self-injury, amnesia, mass murder, and human sacrifice; other things that may warrant warnings include dissociative episodes and irreverent discussion of (Yugioh-ified) Kemetic religion/religious topics. His worldview is also deeply cynical.

If there's anything else you think I should warn for here, please lmk! I'm not the best at always knowing what needs warnings. This post's comments should be screened and IP-logging off.

If you want to opt out of interacting with him for any reason, feel free to say so here, as well!

player Mordrid

availibility nocturnal

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