CHARACTER SHEET: Wanderer

[cureforsuffering]

The shrine shifts around you again, and you find yourself sheltered in the makeshift tent you constructed for yourself—a kind of lean-to made of tarp and scavenged rebar and what remains of a fallen bridge. It is still dark, and while the "stars" of flaming debris are no longer falling, the occasional screams and cries of panic in the distance have not relented. Nor will they.

Your clothes have changed to a tatterdemalion collection of patched and mended layers, topped off with the one fine thing you own—perhaps a shawl or vest, embroidered with a surprisingly skilled hand to depict a design of pomegranates, myrtle branches, and wings. There is a strange peace in you, despite the surrounding chaos: you have been helping people through the worst of life—including the parts of this cruel world that most would never have believed real—for so long already, after all. To aid them through this, too, feels right. Even if you die doing it. …And you may well, given how much out there now exceeds even your experience and paranoid stockpiling preparation.

You're still yourself (...aren't you?), but now you are also this: a second truth.

Also by your side is a handheld communicator, customized with an engraving of an eagle's head on the back. It's got a slightly grainy video screen, a camera lens, plus a radio-style dial that'll let you tune into different frequencies—belonging to the last three people in the world you might still be able to help: a soldier, a priest, and a scholar.

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[ Important note: Your communicator can reach each other character in the session individually; furthermore, any number of people can join the same frequency, allowing for group conversations. If a conversation is taking place and your character has not been invited to to join the frequency, they could still theoretically discover it and hop in, but short of that there is no such thing as eavesdropping—unless or until your character joins a thread, they have no way of knowing what was discussed between those characters. ]

Comments

Remember.

[cureforsuffering]

Who were you, before you started wandering? You've never been able to remember, but also it's never felt like it actually mattered. Certainly not more than the places you could see and the people you could help. Why would you need an identity beyond those, as precious as they are? This world certainly is remarkable.

…But there's something prickling at the edge of your mind. With each new horror, each new portent, the feeling strengthens. It's becoming harder to ignore. Maybe you shouldn't ignore it any longer. Maybe you can't.

Trigger: When you use your UNIQUE SOLUTION, uttering "It is no more" to instantly save one of your companions.
Probably you won't want this to be the very first solution you use, and probably you don't want to save it for last either, but ultimately it's your call.

Remember and reveal. (click for more)

Oh. Of course. How could you have forgotten.

The light bursts out from around you—a mandala of sacred flame—and the wings burst from your shoulders, their feathers all in gold. (Possibly the changes go even further than that, and you gain three more faces: a lion, an ox, and an eagle.) Even on the grainy screens of everyone's video transmitters, the change is unmistakable—and that's not even including the sudden flare of light they might be able to see on the horizon. This is what you are, and what you have always been: a sacred creature, a piece of higher truth. A guide that will bring them all to the end that was foretold.

You know your purpose: to ensure this world ends. But by walking among mortals, you have accepted their fragility: whatever it is that makes you you, and not pure energy or truth or higher will—that can still die.
And still, one vital question remains. To these people—your companions, your friends—are you a blessing, or are you destruction?