mightymorbid (
mightymorbid) wrote2024-05-15 07:27 pm
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Labyrinthum App
OOC INFORMATION
Player Name: Jaq
Pronoun Preferences: She/They
Contact: PM, ImpureTale on plurk (impuretale on Discord)
Are you over the age of 18?: Yes
Invitation Link: N/A, Current Member
Current Characters: Mister Gold
Link to Permissions: Here
IC INFORMATION
Character Name: Mozenrath
Species: Human
Canon: Aladdin: The TV Series
Canon Point: Post-Two to Tangle
Character Age: 21
CRAU: No
CRAU Explanation: N/A
Character Appearance: Topping out at just over 6 feet, Moze is a tall lad. "Lanky," even. He's not typically underweight but is right on the line (fasting was a regular part of his training growing up), and he looks it largely because his last growth spurt apparently came out swinging. He has dark brown/black eyes, heavy lashes, thick brows and a dense shock of curly hair that he tends to keep under his cowl. Guy's very much on the pale side but it's because he has limited exposure to the sun. The Land of the Black Sand is near perpetually dark and owing to the geological anomalies (read: black sand) and the noxious vapor ever present in the air, it is likely that his home is very close to active volcanic activity. So he is just extremely vitamin D deficient. He dresses primarily in dark blues and blacks, but his signature outfit has mixes of brown leather, black silk, and copper filigrees. He is very postured and has the perpetual look of a snob about him despite not likely coming from a privileged background. As far as he is concerned, he earned the right to be a dick.
Powers and Abilities:
Mozenrath's powers are a matter of personal study and practice, but his gauntlet greatly increases his energy reserves and effectiveness -- with the caveat that it basically draws on his life force to do so. Until it is returned to its full power (whether by buying all his abilities back or purchasing it on its own) any other abilities returned will be at the level they would be at without the gauntlet boosting them.
The magic of his gauntlet also keeps his right hand functioning, despite the fact that, beneath the glove, this right arm from his hand up to just above his elbow is nothing but bone -- the result of an unfortunate accident described in his weaknesses section. Without the gauntlet on, people can try to touch what's left of his hand but will encounter an invisible barrier, as though the magic he channels has given him invisible skin and flesh. This will slowly disappear and cause him excruciating amounts of pain if he goes more than a week without his gauntlet on or near him. The bones would eventually fully die and fall off. Starting out in-game, this is the only function the gauntlet serves. His other magical abilities are as follows:
Levitation: At his best, Mozenrath is able to levitate himself, other people, and objects great and small with near-perfect ease -- provided he can concentrate. This would explain why he can levitate himself and objects if he's making an effort to do so, but never seems to be able to stop himself from suddenly falling if he's thrown by an enemy.
Teleportation/Translocation: He can move through tears in time and space. The latter is exhibited in several episodes, where he "cuts" a hole in the environment and is able to step through to his destination. He can also communicate with people this way, opening these tears to hold conversations with a person at a distant location.
Energy/Fire Manipulation: He is able to project blasts of energy, which resemble blue-black fire, and can apparently use said flames to power certain alchemical processes as well. He is also able to use the flames he creates to turn igneous rocks into crystals that have various magic related abilities.
Alchemy and Magic Detection/Containment/Dampening: He at one point is able to create a Philosopher's Stone with much time and intricate planning, which involved not only mechanical knowhow but his power to catalyze it. Some of the crystals he makes absorb magical beings into them, trapping them and allowing him to absorb their energies, while others simply light up and flicker when magic gets close to it. He is also, with the proper resources, able to forge metals that cancel out magics on contact, and he has, in the past, created radial explosives with the same capabilities.
Necromancy: He is able to animate and control dead bodies. His home is guarded by an army of zombie Mamluks that likely existed in the region before he or Destane appeared there. They move through the sand and in general just serve as extra muscle.
Glamor/Illusion: In more than one episode, Mozenrath has shown the ability to disguise himself, his familiar, and even Mamluks as other people or animals in order to avoid detection or lead people into traps.
What Did Your Character Wish For? To restore his body to full, no longer affected by the gauntlet's power, but he keeps the level of magical power he would still have with it.
What Potion Did They Receive? Gold
Did They Drink It? Yes. It will take him a while to figure out how to change back.
Character Questions:
1. Who is the person your character is most bonded with from their canon? Or who is someone they miss the most? Mozenrath does not have a social circle. There's not enough points to form any sort of polygon. So the only person he is really bonded with and that he notices the absence of is his familiar, Xerxes. Speaking broken language but clearly self-aware, his familiar is an outward expression of how far along he is in his magical development. Largely just there to repeat things he says (and sometimes finish his sentences), Xerxes fills the lackey role. As the only other speaking person in his domain, it's sort of Xerxes' job alone to be Mozenrath's hype man and agree with him. His sense of humor is informed largely by what his master shows him and clearly the only amusement or control he tends to exercise is through abuse, and it is very telling based on what Xerxes reacts to: and that's mostly cruelty. Xerxes has limitations to his personality because Mozenrath, himself, is similarly limited. But he's also all he has.
2. What are they most afraid of? "Loss of control" is the umbrella under which all the problems seem to converge. Mozenrath will tell you to your face, probably more than once, that he is the most powerful sorcerer of his age -- and that has a double meaning: the time he exists in, and his actual age. In a modern context, he is barely a legal adult. He has had to put in a lot of work and suffering to get the point that he is at and anything that could be seen as a step back is a direct threat in his eyes. He talks a lot about ruling the Seven Deserts (the known world in this verse) but there is no really clear view of what he even means to do with that level of power and renown once he has it. It's clearly important to him that he is seizing control alone but that if anyone is subjugated (read: pretty much everyone) it is not him.
So on one level he doesn't appear to want to be in a position where he can be treated like he clearly aims to treat others.
On another, loss of control has another meaning for what scares him: Loss of his body and life. The trouble is that he is not unknown for putting himself at risk to get what he wants. He is rarely as careful as he should be in the face of bodily harm because he's stubborn. But even with mutilation and death staring him down from his own choices, he will double down on them with the certainty that he will find a way around them. Because he has to. It is something he can convince himself he still has hold of.
3. What is their weakness? Emotionally, mentally and physically? Emotionally, his weakness is that he is stubborn to a fault and that is wrapped up in protecting his ego. These two facets might as well be one and the same beast, an ouroboros that is forever eating itself. Because Mozenrath has a very inflated sense of self -- he is very smart, he is very powerful, but this creates in him a spot that is both blind and also not? On one hand this means that he just cannot perceive where he has made mistakes or missed something. He does not let it penetrate that despite his power and intelligence he is still very young and hasn't got a lot of knowledge that comes from experience -- though frankly, a lot of the experience he has he probably shouldn't already have, so it leaves him in a place where he feels like he has seen enough.
The not-so-blind part of ego and stubbornness meeting is that he will double down on even bad decisions, because he made them, and simply shoulder the consequences. Even when it places him in more danger and will lead to more pain. He owns his decisions to a self-destructive degree.
Mentally, his weakness is that his limited experiences are informed by an upbringing that has left him stunted. He is cruel, overbearing, and competitive because he does not know how else to be -- that is the example his mentor set for him. Except for the conflicts that he initiates, he literally does not seem to have any other human interaction. The grudges he holds against specific characters are measured through the lens of the way they, individually, have managed to defeat him against what assumptions he came in with about how a situation was supposed to be handled beforehand. This has been the only way he has allowed himself to evolve: The Genie managed to frighten and intimidate him at a point in time where he was supposed to be at the top of his game, with a kudgel he was supposed to be able to use to even the playing field against any magical adversary. After this point he is obsessed with not just beating him but literally subjugating him. Jasmine outsmarted and overpowered him when his understanding of royals and women began and ended with what was probably taught to him when he was raised -- she is treated from then onward as a bigger threat than Aladdin is. Aladdin might be his chosen rival -- they are similar in age and direct opposites in their origins -- but where fighting with him is almost a requirement, she needs to be neutralized ASAP in every subsequent conflict and also treated like she is less than a threat to him. (And in doing so he tends to double down on the sexism because he believes it makes him more intimidating.)
Does he ever leave it open to talk things out? No, because that was never an option when he was at someone else's whims before. Are his enemies' more peaceful tendencies something to be admired and emulated? No, because he was raised by someone who regarded all of these things with derision.
This dives at last into his physical weaknesses, which in some respects his decisions are the cause of. The direct physical issues he has are (mostly) caused by the gauntlet itself and the way he chooses to use it: it boosts his magical strength to dizzying heights, but it needs to draw on energy to do it. Without a set source outside of himself, it just drains his life force slowly. Sometimes he doesn't take the best care of himself (fasting as part of some of his magical practices, like necromancy), so the gauntlet is also pulling from a body that physically is already weaker than it should be. The constant drive to top himself just leads him to push even further past his limits rather than be more mindful of his practices and allow time to recuperate.
Then there is the literal physical weakness: How'd his hand get like that? The show implies two different possibilities but confirms neither: The First: In his first episode he summons a magic eating monster and has to get Aladdin to catch it for him because...it eats magic. And he can't safely control it unless it is collared. Aladdin, on learning it eats magic, asks him if it'll bite the hand that feeds it. Mozenrath holds up his gloved hand and pointedly says "Yes, once bitten." It can be read here that his hand might be like that because the monster bit him. The Second: Later in the series, when his hand is revealed he states that this is what he did for power, leading a lot of fans to assume that the gauntlet caused it to deteriorate as part of the draining process. I lean more toward the first but argue that both are correct: The creature bit Mozenrath trying to get at the gauntlet, and he probably exacerbated the injury reaching in to take the gauntlet back. Because as we have established: He is stubborn and will stick to his guns even in the face of dire harm.
4. What would make them happiest? He thinks what would make him happiest is what he wished for: Ultimate power, his life no longer endangered by the pursuit of it, and a world conquered. But the fact of the matter is that is not an end; he has no idea what the plan is after that, and that even if he did manage it, it is debatable that this would even make him happy. Not-dying isn't bad, sure, but what about the rest? Like a lot of people whose end-goal is something similar, there is something underlying all of that, at its core: It represents safety. It is an end of strife that, while in a lot of ways self-inflicted, feels inevitable on an instinctual level. It's about wanting to reach a point where there is nothing and no one left to get in the way of just living a life. Now, to someone like Mozenrath, that "life" is one of ease created by the fact that there is no one above him that can hurt or stop him. To him, that is the only way he is getting here and is at least, in part, why he resents Aladdin so much. He thinks he has that already -- leave alone that he was homeless and destitute for a huge portion of his life. He was a diamond in the rough: he was blessed. Lucky. Favored by Fate. Mozenrath isn't favored by anyone but Mozenrath. Every ounce of freedom and power he has? He had to fight for. He had to suffer and bleed for.
So you were homeless? At least you were left alone.
The only way that Mozenrath is going to be left alone, in the way that matters in his head, is if there is no one left to challenge him. (Ignore that no one would have even noticed him if he hadn't specifically gone out and made people come and look. He's not ever going to see it that way; this all started because his mentor found him, not the other way around.)
5. What’s their type for a lover? To quote Iago when Aladdin suggested what Mozenrath needed was a girlfriend: "I think he's married to his work." Mozenrath has no interest in having colleagues or friends, much less a lover. The closest he ever gets to "teaming up" with someone is through subcontracting: hiring an underling to do a job he doesn't feel like doing himself. His sexuality, if he even has one, is as yet undecided -- something he hasn't the time or the inclination to look into.
In any case, to even get on neutral ground with him, patience is probably the first and most important thing needed. Because you're not going to get any further with him going in this direction unless you can put up with a lot of boundary-testing and absolutely no give in return. Mozenrath isn't going to start to be a positive force for anyone until he is well past the point that it's clear his unending antagonism hasn't managed to drive you off.
Samples: Here
Player Name: Jaq
Pronoun Preferences: She/They
Contact: PM, ImpureTale on plurk (impuretale on Discord)
Are you over the age of 18?: Yes
Invitation Link: N/A, Current Member
Current Characters: Mister Gold
Link to Permissions: Here
IC INFORMATION
Character Name: Mozenrath
Species: Human
Canon: Aladdin: The TV Series
Canon Point: Post-Two to Tangle
Character Age: 21
CRAU: No
CRAU Explanation: N/A
Character Appearance: Topping out at just over 6 feet, Moze is a tall lad. "Lanky," even. He's not typically underweight but is right on the line (fasting was a regular part of his training growing up), and he looks it largely because his last growth spurt apparently came out swinging. He has dark brown/black eyes, heavy lashes, thick brows and a dense shock of curly hair that he tends to keep under his cowl. Guy's very much on the pale side but it's because he has limited exposure to the sun. The Land of the Black Sand is near perpetually dark and owing to the geological anomalies (read: black sand) and the noxious vapor ever present in the air, it is likely that his home is very close to active volcanic activity. So he is just extremely vitamin D deficient. He dresses primarily in dark blues and blacks, but his signature outfit has mixes of brown leather, black silk, and copper filigrees. He is very postured and has the perpetual look of a snob about him despite not likely coming from a privileged background. As far as he is concerned, he earned the right to be a dick.
Powers and Abilities:
Mozenrath's powers are a matter of personal study and practice, but his gauntlet greatly increases his energy reserves and effectiveness -- with the caveat that it basically draws on his life force to do so. Until it is returned to its full power (whether by buying all his abilities back or purchasing it on its own) any other abilities returned will be at the level they would be at without the gauntlet boosting them.
The magic of his gauntlet also keeps his right hand functioning, despite the fact that, beneath the glove, this right arm from his hand up to just above his elbow is nothing but bone -- the result of an unfortunate accident described in his weaknesses section. Without the gauntlet on, people can try to touch what's left of his hand but will encounter an invisible barrier, as though the magic he channels has given him invisible skin and flesh. This will slowly disappear and cause him excruciating amounts of pain if he goes more than a week without his gauntlet on or near him. The bones would eventually fully die and fall off. Starting out in-game, this is the only function the gauntlet serves. His other magical abilities are as follows:
Levitation: At his best, Mozenrath is able to levitate himself, other people, and objects great and small with near-perfect ease -- provided he can concentrate. This would explain why he can levitate himself and objects if he's making an effort to do so, but never seems to be able to stop himself from suddenly falling if he's thrown by an enemy.
Teleportation/Translocation: He can move through tears in time and space. The latter is exhibited in several episodes, where he "cuts" a hole in the environment and is able to step through to his destination. He can also communicate with people this way, opening these tears to hold conversations with a person at a distant location.
Energy/Fire Manipulation: He is able to project blasts of energy, which resemble blue-black fire, and can apparently use said flames to power certain alchemical processes as well. He is also able to use the flames he creates to turn igneous rocks into crystals that have various magic related abilities.
Alchemy and Magic Detection/Containment/Dampening: He at one point is able to create a Philosopher's Stone with much time and intricate planning, which involved not only mechanical knowhow but his power to catalyze it. Some of the crystals he makes absorb magical beings into them, trapping them and allowing him to absorb their energies, while others simply light up and flicker when magic gets close to it. He is also, with the proper resources, able to forge metals that cancel out magics on contact, and he has, in the past, created radial explosives with the same capabilities.
Necromancy: He is able to animate and control dead bodies. His home is guarded by an army of zombie Mamluks that likely existed in the region before he or Destane appeared there. They move through the sand and in general just serve as extra muscle.
Glamor/Illusion: In more than one episode, Mozenrath has shown the ability to disguise himself, his familiar, and even Mamluks as other people or animals in order to avoid detection or lead people into traps.
What Did Your Character Wish For? To restore his body to full, no longer affected by the gauntlet's power, but he keeps the level of magical power he would still have with it.
What Potion Did They Receive? Gold
Did They Drink It? Yes. It will take him a while to figure out how to change back.
Character Questions:
1. Who is the person your character is most bonded with from their canon? Or who is someone they miss the most? Mozenrath does not have a social circle. There's not enough points to form any sort of polygon. So the only person he is really bonded with and that he notices the absence of is his familiar, Xerxes. Speaking broken language but clearly self-aware, his familiar is an outward expression of how far along he is in his magical development. Largely just there to repeat things he says (and sometimes finish his sentences), Xerxes fills the lackey role. As the only other speaking person in his domain, it's sort of Xerxes' job alone to be Mozenrath's hype man and agree with him. His sense of humor is informed largely by what his master shows him and clearly the only amusement or control he tends to exercise is through abuse, and it is very telling based on what Xerxes reacts to: and that's mostly cruelty. Xerxes has limitations to his personality because Mozenrath, himself, is similarly limited. But he's also all he has.
2. What are they most afraid of? "Loss of control" is the umbrella under which all the problems seem to converge. Mozenrath will tell you to your face, probably more than once, that he is the most powerful sorcerer of his age -- and that has a double meaning: the time he exists in, and his actual age. In a modern context, he is barely a legal adult. He has had to put in a lot of work and suffering to get the point that he is at and anything that could be seen as a step back is a direct threat in his eyes. He talks a lot about ruling the Seven Deserts (the known world in this verse) but there is no really clear view of what he even means to do with that level of power and renown once he has it. It's clearly important to him that he is seizing control alone but that if anyone is subjugated (read: pretty much everyone) it is not him.
So on one level he doesn't appear to want to be in a position where he can be treated like he clearly aims to treat others.
On another, loss of control has another meaning for what scares him: Loss of his body and life. The trouble is that he is not unknown for putting himself at risk to get what he wants. He is rarely as careful as he should be in the face of bodily harm because he's stubborn. But even with mutilation and death staring him down from his own choices, he will double down on them with the certainty that he will find a way around them. Because he has to. It is something he can convince himself he still has hold of.
3. What is their weakness? Emotionally, mentally and physically? Emotionally, his weakness is that he is stubborn to a fault and that is wrapped up in protecting his ego. These two facets might as well be one and the same beast, an ouroboros that is forever eating itself. Because Mozenrath has a very inflated sense of self -- he is very smart, he is very powerful, but this creates in him a spot that is both blind and also not? On one hand this means that he just cannot perceive where he has made mistakes or missed something. He does not let it penetrate that despite his power and intelligence he is still very young and hasn't got a lot of knowledge that comes from experience -- though frankly, a lot of the experience he has he probably shouldn't already have, so it leaves him in a place where he feels like he has seen enough.
The not-so-blind part of ego and stubbornness meeting is that he will double down on even bad decisions, because he made them, and simply shoulder the consequences. Even when it places him in more danger and will lead to more pain. He owns his decisions to a self-destructive degree.
Mentally, his weakness is that his limited experiences are informed by an upbringing that has left him stunted. He is cruel, overbearing, and competitive because he does not know how else to be -- that is the example his mentor set for him. Except for the conflicts that he initiates, he literally does not seem to have any other human interaction. The grudges he holds against specific characters are measured through the lens of the way they, individually, have managed to defeat him against what assumptions he came in with about how a situation was supposed to be handled beforehand. This has been the only way he has allowed himself to evolve: The Genie managed to frighten and intimidate him at a point in time where he was supposed to be at the top of his game, with a kudgel he was supposed to be able to use to even the playing field against any magical adversary. After this point he is obsessed with not just beating him but literally subjugating him. Jasmine outsmarted and overpowered him when his understanding of royals and women began and ended with what was probably taught to him when he was raised -- she is treated from then onward as a bigger threat than Aladdin is. Aladdin might be his chosen rival -- they are similar in age and direct opposites in their origins -- but where fighting with him is almost a requirement, she needs to be neutralized ASAP in every subsequent conflict and also treated like she is less than a threat to him. (And in doing so he tends to double down on the sexism because he believes it makes him more intimidating.)
Does he ever leave it open to talk things out? No, because that was never an option when he was at someone else's whims before. Are his enemies' more peaceful tendencies something to be admired and emulated? No, because he was raised by someone who regarded all of these things with derision.
This dives at last into his physical weaknesses, which in some respects his decisions are the cause of. The direct physical issues he has are (mostly) caused by the gauntlet itself and the way he chooses to use it: it boosts his magical strength to dizzying heights, but it needs to draw on energy to do it. Without a set source outside of himself, it just drains his life force slowly. Sometimes he doesn't take the best care of himself (fasting as part of some of his magical practices, like necromancy), so the gauntlet is also pulling from a body that physically is already weaker than it should be. The constant drive to top himself just leads him to push even further past his limits rather than be more mindful of his practices and allow time to recuperate.
Then there is the literal physical weakness: How'd his hand get like that? The show implies two different possibilities but confirms neither: The First: In his first episode he summons a magic eating monster and has to get Aladdin to catch it for him because...it eats magic. And he can't safely control it unless it is collared. Aladdin, on learning it eats magic, asks him if it'll bite the hand that feeds it. Mozenrath holds up his gloved hand and pointedly says "Yes, once bitten." It can be read here that his hand might be like that because the monster bit him. The Second: Later in the series, when his hand is revealed he states that this is what he did for power, leading a lot of fans to assume that the gauntlet caused it to deteriorate as part of the draining process. I lean more toward the first but argue that both are correct: The creature bit Mozenrath trying to get at the gauntlet, and he probably exacerbated the injury reaching in to take the gauntlet back. Because as we have established: He is stubborn and will stick to his guns even in the face of dire harm.
4. What would make them happiest? He thinks what would make him happiest is what he wished for: Ultimate power, his life no longer endangered by the pursuit of it, and a world conquered. But the fact of the matter is that is not an end; he has no idea what the plan is after that, and that even if he did manage it, it is debatable that this would even make him happy. Not-dying isn't bad, sure, but what about the rest? Like a lot of people whose end-goal is something similar, there is something underlying all of that, at its core: It represents safety. It is an end of strife that, while in a lot of ways self-inflicted, feels inevitable on an instinctual level. It's about wanting to reach a point where there is nothing and no one left to get in the way of just living a life. Now, to someone like Mozenrath, that "life" is one of ease created by the fact that there is no one above him that can hurt or stop him. To him, that is the only way he is getting here and is at least, in part, why he resents Aladdin so much. He thinks he has that already -- leave alone that he was homeless and destitute for a huge portion of his life. He was a diamond in the rough: he was blessed. Lucky. Favored by Fate. Mozenrath isn't favored by anyone but Mozenrath. Every ounce of freedom and power he has? He had to fight for. He had to suffer and bleed for.
So you were homeless? At least you were left alone.
The only way that Mozenrath is going to be left alone, in the way that matters in his head, is if there is no one left to challenge him. (Ignore that no one would have even noticed him if he hadn't specifically gone out and made people come and look. He's not ever going to see it that way; this all started because his mentor found him, not the other way around.)
5. What’s their type for a lover? To quote Iago when Aladdin suggested what Mozenrath needed was a girlfriend: "I think he's married to his work." Mozenrath has no interest in having colleagues or friends, much less a lover. The closest he ever gets to "teaming up" with someone is through subcontracting: hiring an underling to do a job he doesn't feel like doing himself. His sexuality, if he even has one, is as yet undecided -- something he hasn't the time or the inclination to look into.
In any case, to even get on neutral ground with him, patience is probably the first and most important thing needed. Because you're not going to get any further with him going in this direction unless you can put up with a lot of boundary-testing and absolutely no give in return. Mozenrath isn't going to start to be a positive force for anyone until he is well past the point that it's clear his unending antagonism hasn't managed to drive you off.
Samples: Here