Ochre Gray Yellow
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[edit] Ochre Gray Yellow
A character in "The Snow Princess", a one-shot tabletop RPG. Played by Constantine H.; written/GMed by Matt M.
[edit] Description
Outwardly: A human-sized bug, black and glossy, usually standing upright out of polite deference to human custom. Their own name being a long sequence of hard-to-describe colors, Ochre Gray Yellow's race is content to be called "Blackbeetles" by all and sundry.
Inwardly: A small humanoid shape, still black and glossy but in a wet-vinyl sort of way. Barbed and lethal, almost faster than thought.
[edit] Writeup
You are Ochre Gray Yellow, a successful but self-employed Blackbeetle merchant of no fixed abode, cheerful, friendly, a useful companion.
You are the craft of a man’s hand. You have a purpose: to strike. There have been others like you; you are not unique; but you are the only element in all creation that has been assigned your specific role.
There are two things: a person and a place. You have been given all the signs by which you will know both of them. For the latter, dimensions, architecture, and if that fails a symbol which will appear nowhere else. For the former, all the signs of face, form, voice, manner, pheromones, blood . . . you would know him in a room filled with a thousand of his closest kin. There is a final instruction, for when the two things come together: you are to stab him through the chest and spill his heart’s blood on the floor.
In that moment you will be perfect and complete; one hour thereafter your body will cease to function.
But there have been so many moments to fill in, between your making and your death. And all you have had of your own were thoughts of your target, and now that you’ve tracked him down those thoughts have taken a new shape. He reminds you of someone. You adore him in every particular. And so, besotted, you’ll betray the spirit of the very terms under which you were made.
“Ochre Gray Yellow” is the name of your support frame—the physical and social construct which sustains and disguises you. Outwardly, then, you are here to explore development possibilities related to goldwire. You’re aware that this may put you in competition with the other people in this carriage, but you’re much too sophisticated, and too genuinely pleasant, to be anything other than comradely and outgoing with them. You’re all aliens together, after all!
You’re not even certain the rest of them are merchants like you. You may be able to come to some sort of noncompetitive arrangement with them, regarding the trade in goldwire. This is especially desirable because
because you are not, of course, actually a merchant; your finances are enough to maintain a brief illusion, but no more. Your target proceeds toward his destiny; you will facilitate that progress.
When he enters the place that awaits him, you will cast off your support frame and, for one instant, your form and his will converge. But you’re cunning: you will use your narrowest, most needlelike blade to do this. It is barely two hairs’ breadth wide. You can see the moment very clearly in your small machinelike mind: the needle will pass through his chest and before he can cry out a single drop of red blood will drop from it onto the floor. Then you will apply pressure and keep him as steady as possible, while your drugged needle keeps his heart from tearing itself into pieces. Carrying him from the place with exquisite delicacy, you will watch his breathing, the tiny motions of his eyes.
Thus you’ll die, saving his life: a consummation devoutly to be wished.
[edit] Traits
In support frame:
- effusive
- mercantile
- adequately funded
- pleasant
- multi-limbed
Deployed from support frame:
- lethal
- deadly
- fast as thought
- fast as the wind
- inhumanly agile
- eerily nimble
- strong as a vise
- doomed
- passionate
- dedicated
- protective of Veris
- in love with Veris
