The Avatar of Shiva

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Dakarne
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The Avatar of Shiva

Post by Dakarne »

Okay, this character is an attempt to take a parody of Kamin as written by Vagrant Orpheus here and marry it to the idea of making someone who is in fact a workable character. Now, the ideas behind that above character are accidentally workable as there are several factors that seem to be rather interesting; the actual 'Avatar of Shiva' thing does actually appear in Hindu Mythology. Basically, certain people throughout history are said to be his incarnations or 'avatars'.

The Avatar of Shiva

Real Name: Naren Shankara
Age: 23

Origins:
Naren Shankara was born in Mumbai, India, to relatively wealthy Hindu parents, and lived a mostly-uneventful life. From an early age, he displayed the usual young boy obsessions with cricket and video games, and lived his life as an ordinary child until he was on his thirteenth birthday visited by a strange, bespectacled Englishman who seemed to recognise something within him. This strange man claimed to recognise within him an innate destiny, tied to that of divinity, and gifted him with a statue of Shiva, the Hindu God of Destruction, telling him that he was a descendent of the Indian philosopher, Adi Shankara, and that he would inherit a similar legacy.

His life continued on as normal for another couple of years, until he began to have a series of strange dreams so vivid that they etched themselves onto his memory almost perfectly; he could remember every detail from them even years after the fact. The first ones were of an asteroid striking the planet, or of a nuclear war which would ravage civilisation. He then began to have far stranger dreams of a great wolf devouring the planet, a vast dragon devouring the skies, and other incredible visions of mass destruction and the end of times. He also dreamed that he would have a role in these events, eventually dreaming of the complete end times of the universe, wherein he would be required to personally end it, and start it anew. And what was more; these events were not too far away. These visions terrified him to the point of his losing sleep and being unable to function, and he became known for his fevered ramblings and babbling warnings which ultimately led to him being deemed insane by those close to him.

A few months after he was taken to a psychiatric hospital, he began to have visions of a different kind after witnessing a poster for a Bollywood movie based around the superhero Archwind. These new visions told him of ways by which the doom of the entire universe could be prevented, and he began his quest to free himself from the asylum and gather the world's greatest heroes in order to defeat the oncoming threat.

This acceptance of his destiny led to one last dream, one which was terrible enough to cause him physical pain as his head burned in the centre of his forehead and his shoulders ached with additional weight, but he developed superhuman strength which was enough to break free of his imprisonment and set off on his journey. For the next few days he lived on the run, eventually finding a cave which he could crawl into in order to hide. Inside this cave, he had another vision of the god Shiva, and his strength increased further, though the burning in his forehead and the ache in his shoulders increased, and he was bid to travel to the great statue of Shiva at Bangalore in Karnataka.

It took him two days to get there, stowing away on trains in order to travel. Once he arrived within eyeshot of the statue at midnight, witnessing its greatness, his pain increased exponentially. But rather than collapsing into a vision as he had done before, he sat down before it, folding his legs and hands into a meditative position. The ache in his shoulders reached its peak when additional arms shot forth from them, and the sharp stabbing pain through his forehead subsided as a ruby-red gemstone came into existence there, shining with the light of destruction.

And he realised what he had become. He had become Shiva's Avatar, the man who would become Shiva's mortal vessel in the world.

From there, he knew his task. It was his destiny to become the hero of India, and gather the heroes of the world to battle the oncoming apocalypse. The rather petulant, immature child within him also realised that he had become a mega badarse.

Appearance and Personality:
One of the first things many people notice about Naren is his skin-colour. As the Avatar of Shiva, his skin colour has shifted from its natural brown to a very noticeable bluish-white, and in his forehead there lies a crimson-coloured jewel which contains a significant fraction of his power. His eyes glow with the golden lights of creation, and he has four arms at all times. This transformation has proven irreversible, to the point where not even illusions or holograms can disugise his true self. This has had the effect of making him seem strange and unusual to many people, often provoking a negative reaction at this clearly-different and clearly-metahuman individual.

On the other hand, his personality is unstable. Though his dreams turned out to be true, his reputation as a madman and their traumatic nature, coupled with his strange appearance means that many people cannot take him at face value and that he becomes obsessive over certain things. His social skills are also lacking, and he does not have quite the ability to convince people that the end times are coming as much as he'd like to. In addition to this, his adjustment to his powers meant that he was responsible for a lot of property damage in his first few years, and has thus caused something of a reputation.

Powers and Abilities:
As the Avatar of Shiva, he possesses powers of superhuman strength compounded by the fact that he also has four arms. He wields no weapons in combat unless he absolutely has to, but does possess several bladed weapons such as swords and knives for whenever he really needs them. He possesses also the ability to fly and teleport, in addition, allowing him extremely vast levels of mobility.

Most of his power emphasises his origin as a fragment of the God of Destruction, however, and the third eye jewel on his forehead exemplifies this with its ability to destroy almost anything short of individuals like Archwind with a single powerful glare. This power is not something he likes to use, however, as it represents something which he himself is trying to prevent. Other than that, he possesses no real combat skills outside of perhaps knowing the best way to swing a cricket bat, and a lot of his advantages are purely centred around his possession of power.

Weaknesses:
Other than his unstable nature, he is a hard person to trust due to his incredible power and equally incredible levels of inexperience, the nature of where those powers come from, and his reputation for insanity. He is also mentally unstable, and extremely susceptible to his own ill temper. There is also the distinctive possibility that the apocalyptic scenarios he imagined were in fact the fevered hormonal dreams brought on by relatively ordinary metahuman transformations, and not visions of the future at all.
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'For the moment, mortal, they find the thought of killing me more desirable than that of killing you.'
'And what are their chances?'
'The answer to that is evident in how long they've been hesitating, wouldn't you think, mortal?'

-Anomander Rake and Ganoes Paran in Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson
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Booted Vulture
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Re: The Avatar of Shiva

Post by Booted Vulture »

This is really rather god, especially considering the rather short period of time you must have wrote considering its based on Orph's post earlier today. I'm having a little trouble discerning from the article whether this guys a 'good guy' or a ;bad guy' he obviously considers himself a hero and a saviour but given Shiva's association with destruction and his psychotic nature I have had time believing that the rest of the world agrees...

Edit: switched Kali's name for Shiva considering they're different people. Shows how much attention I pay when reading :?
Last edited by Booted Vulture on Sun Jan 31, 2010 9:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Dakarne
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Re: The Avatar of Shiva

Post by Dakarne »

My goal was to make the character ambiguous enough that you could use him in a story as a hero, a villain or neither. Also Kali and Shiva are different deities in Hindu mythology. Kali is the Goddess of Death, Shiva is the God (no 'ess') of Destruction.
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'For the moment, mortal, they find the thought of killing me more desirable than that of killing you.'
'And what are their chances?'
'The answer to that is evident in how long they've been hesitating, wouldn't you think, mortal?'

-Anomander Rake and Ganoes Paran in Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson
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Shroom Man 777
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Re: The Avatar of Shiva

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

A Very Big Hmmm... since I, well, ah, know jack and shit about Hindustan and anything Indian except from curry. But, man, the fact that you turned Orph's MEGA BADASS into this is very cool.

That, and a Bollywood depiction of the superhero Archwind. Oh, man. Bollywood.

The character has interesting implications. While you say that he looks and acts apparently insane and all that, I think he'd actually garner a shitload of followers all over the country precisely because he's a friggin' avatar of Shiva. Look at him, blue skin, many arms, awesome superhuman powers, there'll be masses of people just crowding around and prostrating and walking barefooted for miles just to witness his great and terrible visage! This is India! If cultists bathe themselves in the urine of sacred cows, this guy's excrement is probably going to be even holier by an order of magnitude!

Woah! Think of all the craziness! He can act like a messiah if all of this gets into his head, if people start buying into his Shiva shtick and if he himself starts drinking the kool aid. Imagine him leading a religious movement. Him, his loopy visions, his immaturity and youth and instability. Oh mang.


I guess you didn't put these things in it because, aside from unfamiliarity with India, you intended the ambiguity so people could use this guy flexibly - either by, say, having him as an overpowered youngling with delusions of grandeur (and the apocalypse!), or as some struggling blue-skinned many-armed weirdo who tries to do good (by stopping the apocalypse) but heavily suffers from his gift-curses (of the apocalypse!), or as some delusional fruitcake who has a thousands-man strong following of hinduists who're out wrecking shit up with sticks (with which they intend to beat the apocalypse!).
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"Sometimes Shroomy I wonder if your imagination actually counts as some sort of war crime." - FROD
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