Name: Voldegra.
Age: Timeless.
Birthday: Coincident with the origin of its domain.
Gender: Neuter.
Category: Citizen by proxy.
Appearance Description: Voldegra looks kind of like a huge cobra made of darkness. Its roughly triangular hood is about four feet wide and usually rises taller than whomever else is around it, but not higher than about ten feet. Its skin appears smooth and shiny, like tar, but it doesn't actually reflect light from its surroundings. The shiny texture of its blackness just slowly shifts and flows on its own. Many slim tendrils about as thick as a human arm flow from the sides of its body, the longest of which protrude from under its hood. It uses these tentacles as limbs when necessary, and they can reach as far as six to eight feet. The lesser tendrils along the rest of its length are only a foot or two long when fully extended. At the center of Voldegra's hood is a white oval that it shapes into something like a face when interacting with mortals. It can present a shocking level of detail with this false face, but it is always perfectly white with at best a pair of dark holes for eyes and perhaps a mouth. It usually doesn't bother with anything but the barest suggestion of facial features, but even when it presents a more sophisticated face it will forget details like moving its mouth while speaking or changing its facial posture to express emotion. When it speaks, it does so in a deep and piercing tone that sounds like nobody in particular.
Voldegra's vessels tend to dress in black. They can wear other colors if they wish, but black is Voldegra's color and most wear it of their own accord.
Personality Description: Voldegra seems calm and distant to most mortals it meets, and while this is to some extent true it actually experiences a variety of feelings comparable to mortal emotions. To say that Voldegra is bad at expressing these feelings would imply that it is trying to do so, which it isn't, but the fact remains that only its mortal vessels are likely to have any idea what it is thinking. Still, some of its feeling have consequences in its behavior, and these can at least be guessed at. Those who encounter Voldegra learn very quickly that it wants to know things. Why it wants to know these things is harder to determine. Furthermore, it seems that Voldegra has things that likes and things it does not. Voldegra's servants are known for trading, taking, or destroying items and people of interest to their master for reasons unclear to anyone else. Voldegra has its reasons, of course, but its vessels aren't really equipped to fully understand them. The impression that Voldegra gives is thus of a curious collector with opinions about material existence that it has no concerns about enforcing regardless of how the resident mortals might feel.
Voldegra values skill and focus, so most vessels are good at what they do, but that can mean almost anything depending on their talents and preferences. Because of this, they are often passionate and effusive or severe and efficient. Their social graces begin to slip as they spend time in contact with Voldegra and come to understand it better than the mortals around them.
Likes: Intricate complexity and elegant simplicity. Patterns.
Dislikes: Unfinished puzzles, unsolved riddles. Messes.
Weaknesses: Poor communication skills.
Strengths: Curious and contemplative.
Fears: Demons of greater power than itself. Random elements in ordered systems.
Habits/Hobbies: Existing in material reality could be described as Voldegra's hobby.
Skills / Talents: Voldegra knows many things. A few of these are useful, like its functional understanding of many languages both living and dead. Most are less so.
Powers:
Mortal Vessel:
"Become my body, and I will become your soul."
Voldegra interacts with the world principally through mortal vessels who have invited it into themselves. A willing mortal, and to Voldegra "mortal" includes most living beings that exist in linear time, may invoke Voldegra and invite it to infuse them with a measure of its substance. If the mortal is found suitable by Voldegra, it enters the material world and uses its tendrils to inscribe slithering lines of its own dark essence into the supplicant's skin. These lines of power look like especially dark tattoos, and are faintly shiny in bright light. Those accepted by Voldegra sometimes make the pact in exchange for some service the demon can provide or an item in its possession, but such an exchange is not necessary. Once inscribed, the vessel becomes an appendage of Voldegra in the material world. Voldegra can perceive all that they do and sense their thoughts if it desires. It may take control of their body at any time, and though it cannot directly manipulate the vessel's mind it can send its thoughts and feelings to the vessel, which is usually enough to convince to convince the vessel that their master knows best. Not that Voldegra needs to compel obedience in its vessels, but it has found that they are more effective if left plenty of time in command of their bodies and certain in the knowledge that their servitude is a gift rather than an imprisonment. Perhaps the most seductive aspect of this bond is that while Voldegra doesn't exactly love them, its vessels can feel Voldegra's eternal affirmation of their worthiness every time its mind presses against theirs.
Having the substance of Voldegra within them also causes physical changes in its vessels. The needs of the flesh grow distant, and this makes its vessels strong. Their hearts beat slower, they breathe less often and they barely need to eat or drink. They don't really become more physically capable, but their bodies have fewer limits and this allows them to push harder and endure longer without suffering lasting harm. The implantation of Voldegra's substance makes the weak strong and the strong nearly, but not quite, superhuman. It has its downsides, though. Pain is dulled, though at times this can be a blessing, and vessels are left forever sterile after their inscription. Voldegra can also deliberately warp the forms of its vessels. It can't transform them into another being entirely, but is capable of briefly twisting aspects of their bodies to suit its needs. It can make them soft and malleable enough to squeeze through tight spaces or shape their limbs into bulging hulks with the strength to tear through walls and bodies effortlessly. This kind of alteration is painful and destructive to the vessel, and those who undergo it regularly tend not to live long. Spending a few minutes transformed by Voldegra is exhausting, and approaching an hour is likely to kill the vessel then and there as the body falls apart under the strain of incompatible realities. Because the process is so unnatural, Voldegra always takes direct control of vessels' bodies when it changes them for some purpose, since the vessel could probably not control their new form even if they wanted to.
Voldegra can remove itself from a vessel, though it only does so if the vessel has failed it terribly in some way. It could perhaps be removed forcibly, but the vessel could easily die from the trauma of having Voldegra ripped out of their body and soul. When a vessel dies, their soul is taken into Voldegra and made a permanent part of its realm. This is considered a vessel's final reward for their service, at last brought into the timeless world of their master and into perfect union with Voldegra itself.
Invoking Voldegra:
"Speak my name. Invite me into your world."
The true name of a demon such as Voldegra is not a word that can be spoken, nor even a sound that can be heard or a sigil that can be written. However, in the various realities it contacts there are sounds and symbols that have been made to suggest the true name indistinguishable from the demon itself. Of these nearly true names, "Voldegra" is the one by which the people of the planet Earth know this demon. When a material being speaks or writes "Voldegra" they create a connection between the demon's world and their own. In some sense Voldegra is present any time its name is invoked, whether or not it chooses to insert its form into the local reality. This comes with the inconvenience that anyone who knows its name can get its attention and make contact with it. This small problem is outweighed by the fact that any time its name is invoked, Voldegra can perceive the circumstances of the invoking and enter the vicinity of its name freely, since willfully invoking its name is essentially inviting Voldegra into the world. Though much more limited than its mortal vessels, the use of Voldegra's name is its other principle method of observing and contacting the material world. Voldegra takes care to keep its name little known, but it does so as a ploy to lure curious beings from other realities into assuming they can gain some hold over the demon by discovering its name. In fact, the truth is almost the opposite. Names have power for things like Voldegra, but the nature of that power is not always what a mortal demonologist might hope.
The invocation of one of Voldegra's proper names is the only way for it to directly intrude upon material realities. It has slightly more freedom to move between its realm and other spiritual realities of similar natures, but generally it gets around by means of its names. Even its vessels can only summon their lord by the use of a name, though they don't often need to. On the planet Earth, the demon's name has been written in a variety of ways, but all are pronounced "Voldegra" or something very much like it. Voldegra may project its physical presence into a place where its name has been spoken within the last few seconds, or anywhere its name is clearly written. It can only be physically present in one location at any time, whether material or spiritual. While its physical presence may be outside of its personal realm at times, it is always aware and in control of this world because Voldegra is its domain just as much as it is the demon that rules there. Voldegra does not know what would happen if its physical presence were destroyed outside of its domain. It thinks that it would survive the experience, but does not want to find out.
Biography: In current times, Voldegra is best known as a minor demon listed in a few old grimoires. Most records count it among the demons of Satan in hell, but then again most records were written either by theologians or witches using a very Christian cosmological framework. Demonologists would do well to consider such accounts about as sure as the Roman scrolls that list "Uoldegra" among the inhabitants of Tartarus or the Egyptian stela that names Voldegra as a servant of Apophis and a demon of the darkness beyond the world. All that can be said with certainty is that long ago a human somehow touched the existence of a far away demon and fashioned a word in the likeness of what they had found. This imperfect impression expressed in imperfect form was "Voldegra," and so it has been known ever since.
Voldegra comes from a domain outside of space and beyond time. Its world can be perceived in ways resembling time and place, but this really just a convenient metaphor imposed by visitors for their own comfort. This is why Voldegra is so interested in the material world. The contrasting fixed nature of the past and mutable nature of the future confuse it, but it finds the limits and consistency of other realities intriguing.
Voldegra has been known to humanity for about as long as humans have gathered in tribes and nations. It would be a tedious task to catalogue all the ways it has been understood by all the humans who have discovered its name, and more importantly it would be pointless. What matters is that a few in each generation have offered themselves to Voldegra and thus learned what it really is by becoming part of it. They typically work alone and pursue their master’s strange purposes by observing or taking part in events that strike its interest and collecting items it deems of value. Voldegra appears only long enough to take their acquisitions back to its own world, only to be returned if the demon is offered something it values more in exchange. A few mortals seek it out to trade for such items, especially because they are always returned seemingly untouched by the passage of time since they were collected. Unfortunately for those who desire relics of ages past from Voldegra's collection, it is difficult to guess what it might want in return.
Additional Information:
When it speaks, Voldegra uses bold. This is to help readers distinguish between when the demon is speaking and when it is letting vessels speak for themselves.
Voldegra's vessels on are few and scattered all over the world. Here are those currently relevant to its presence on Manta Carlos.
Shi Mei
Alice Corbie
Age: Timeless.
Birthday: Coincident with the origin of its domain.
Gender: Neuter.
Category: Citizen by proxy.
Appearance Description: Voldegra looks kind of like a huge cobra made of darkness. Its roughly triangular hood is about four feet wide and usually rises taller than whomever else is around it, but not higher than about ten feet. Its skin appears smooth and shiny, like tar, but it doesn't actually reflect light from its surroundings. The shiny texture of its blackness just slowly shifts and flows on its own. Many slim tendrils about as thick as a human arm flow from the sides of its body, the longest of which protrude from under its hood. It uses these tentacles as limbs when necessary, and they can reach as far as six to eight feet. The lesser tendrils along the rest of its length are only a foot or two long when fully extended. At the center of Voldegra's hood is a white oval that it shapes into something like a face when interacting with mortals. It can present a shocking level of detail with this false face, but it is always perfectly white with at best a pair of dark holes for eyes and perhaps a mouth. It usually doesn't bother with anything but the barest suggestion of facial features, but even when it presents a more sophisticated face it will forget details like moving its mouth while speaking or changing its facial posture to express emotion. When it speaks, it does so in a deep and piercing tone that sounds like nobody in particular.
Voldegra's vessels tend to dress in black. They can wear other colors if they wish, but black is Voldegra's color and most wear it of their own accord.
Personality Description: Voldegra seems calm and distant to most mortals it meets, and while this is to some extent true it actually experiences a variety of feelings comparable to mortal emotions. To say that Voldegra is bad at expressing these feelings would imply that it is trying to do so, which it isn't, but the fact remains that only its mortal vessels are likely to have any idea what it is thinking. Still, some of its feeling have consequences in its behavior, and these can at least be guessed at. Those who encounter Voldegra learn very quickly that it wants to know things. Why it wants to know these things is harder to determine. Furthermore, it seems that Voldegra has things that likes and things it does not. Voldegra's servants are known for trading, taking, or destroying items and people of interest to their master for reasons unclear to anyone else. Voldegra has its reasons, of course, but its vessels aren't really equipped to fully understand them. The impression that Voldegra gives is thus of a curious collector with opinions about material existence that it has no concerns about enforcing regardless of how the resident mortals might feel.
Voldegra values skill and focus, so most vessels are good at what they do, but that can mean almost anything depending on their talents and preferences. Because of this, they are often passionate and effusive or severe and efficient. Their social graces begin to slip as they spend time in contact with Voldegra and come to understand it better than the mortals around them.
Likes: Intricate complexity and elegant simplicity. Patterns.
Dislikes: Unfinished puzzles, unsolved riddles. Messes.
Weaknesses: Poor communication skills.
Strengths: Curious and contemplative.
Fears: Demons of greater power than itself. Random elements in ordered systems.
Habits/Hobbies: Existing in material reality could be described as Voldegra's hobby.
Skills / Talents: Voldegra knows many things. A few of these are useful, like its functional understanding of many languages both living and dead. Most are less so.
Powers:
Mortal Vessel:
"Become my body, and I will become your soul."
Voldegra interacts with the world principally through mortal vessels who have invited it into themselves. A willing mortal, and to Voldegra "mortal" includes most living beings that exist in linear time, may invoke Voldegra and invite it to infuse them with a measure of its substance. If the mortal is found suitable by Voldegra, it enters the material world and uses its tendrils to inscribe slithering lines of its own dark essence into the supplicant's skin. These lines of power look like especially dark tattoos, and are faintly shiny in bright light. Those accepted by Voldegra sometimes make the pact in exchange for some service the demon can provide or an item in its possession, but such an exchange is not necessary. Once inscribed, the vessel becomes an appendage of Voldegra in the material world. Voldegra can perceive all that they do and sense their thoughts if it desires. It may take control of their body at any time, and though it cannot directly manipulate the vessel's mind it can send its thoughts and feelings to the vessel, which is usually enough to convince to convince the vessel that their master knows best. Not that Voldegra needs to compel obedience in its vessels, but it has found that they are more effective if left plenty of time in command of their bodies and certain in the knowledge that their servitude is a gift rather than an imprisonment. Perhaps the most seductive aspect of this bond is that while Voldegra doesn't exactly love them, its vessels can feel Voldegra's eternal affirmation of their worthiness every time its mind presses against theirs.
Having the substance of Voldegra within them also causes physical changes in its vessels. The needs of the flesh grow distant, and this makes its vessels strong. Their hearts beat slower, they breathe less often and they barely need to eat or drink. They don't really become more physically capable, but their bodies have fewer limits and this allows them to push harder and endure longer without suffering lasting harm. The implantation of Voldegra's substance makes the weak strong and the strong nearly, but not quite, superhuman. It has its downsides, though. Pain is dulled, though at times this can be a blessing, and vessels are left forever sterile after their inscription. Voldegra can also deliberately warp the forms of its vessels. It can't transform them into another being entirely, but is capable of briefly twisting aspects of their bodies to suit its needs. It can make them soft and malleable enough to squeeze through tight spaces or shape their limbs into bulging hulks with the strength to tear through walls and bodies effortlessly. This kind of alteration is painful and destructive to the vessel, and those who undergo it regularly tend not to live long. Spending a few minutes transformed by Voldegra is exhausting, and approaching an hour is likely to kill the vessel then and there as the body falls apart under the strain of incompatible realities. Because the process is so unnatural, Voldegra always takes direct control of vessels' bodies when it changes them for some purpose, since the vessel could probably not control their new form even if they wanted to.
Voldegra can remove itself from a vessel, though it only does so if the vessel has failed it terribly in some way. It could perhaps be removed forcibly, but the vessel could easily die from the trauma of having Voldegra ripped out of their body and soul. When a vessel dies, their soul is taken into Voldegra and made a permanent part of its realm. This is considered a vessel's final reward for their service, at last brought into the timeless world of their master and into perfect union with Voldegra itself.
Invoking Voldegra:
"Speak my name. Invite me into your world."
The true name of a demon such as Voldegra is not a word that can be spoken, nor even a sound that can be heard or a sigil that can be written. However, in the various realities it contacts there are sounds and symbols that have been made to suggest the true name indistinguishable from the demon itself. Of these nearly true names, "Voldegra" is the one by which the people of the planet Earth know this demon. When a material being speaks or writes "Voldegra" they create a connection between the demon's world and their own. In some sense Voldegra is present any time its name is invoked, whether or not it chooses to insert its form into the local reality. This comes with the inconvenience that anyone who knows its name can get its attention and make contact with it. This small problem is outweighed by the fact that any time its name is invoked, Voldegra can perceive the circumstances of the invoking and enter the vicinity of its name freely, since willfully invoking its name is essentially inviting Voldegra into the world. Though much more limited than its mortal vessels, the use of Voldegra's name is its other principle method of observing and contacting the material world. Voldegra takes care to keep its name little known, but it does so as a ploy to lure curious beings from other realities into assuming they can gain some hold over the demon by discovering its name. In fact, the truth is almost the opposite. Names have power for things like Voldegra, but the nature of that power is not always what a mortal demonologist might hope.
The invocation of one of Voldegra's proper names is the only way for it to directly intrude upon material realities. It has slightly more freedom to move between its realm and other spiritual realities of similar natures, but generally it gets around by means of its names. Even its vessels can only summon their lord by the use of a name, though they don't often need to. On the planet Earth, the demon's name has been written in a variety of ways, but all are pronounced "Voldegra" or something very much like it. Voldegra may project its physical presence into a place where its name has been spoken within the last few seconds, or anywhere its name is clearly written. It can only be physically present in one location at any time, whether material or spiritual. While its physical presence may be outside of its personal realm at times, it is always aware and in control of this world because Voldegra is its domain just as much as it is the demon that rules there. Voldegra does not know what would happen if its physical presence were destroyed outside of its domain. It thinks that it would survive the experience, but does not want to find out.
Biography: In current times, Voldegra is best known as a minor demon listed in a few old grimoires. Most records count it among the demons of Satan in hell, but then again most records were written either by theologians or witches using a very Christian cosmological framework. Demonologists would do well to consider such accounts about as sure as the Roman scrolls that list "Uoldegra" among the inhabitants of Tartarus or the Egyptian stela that names Voldegra as a servant of Apophis and a demon of the darkness beyond the world. All that can be said with certainty is that long ago a human somehow touched the existence of a far away demon and fashioned a word in the likeness of what they had found. This imperfect impression expressed in imperfect form was "Voldegra," and so it has been known ever since.
Voldegra comes from a domain outside of space and beyond time. Its world can be perceived in ways resembling time and place, but this really just a convenient metaphor imposed by visitors for their own comfort. This is why Voldegra is so interested in the material world. The contrasting fixed nature of the past and mutable nature of the future confuse it, but it finds the limits and consistency of other realities intriguing.
Voldegra has been known to humanity for about as long as humans have gathered in tribes and nations. It would be a tedious task to catalogue all the ways it has been understood by all the humans who have discovered its name, and more importantly it would be pointless. What matters is that a few in each generation have offered themselves to Voldegra and thus learned what it really is by becoming part of it. They typically work alone and pursue their master’s strange purposes by observing or taking part in events that strike its interest and collecting items it deems of value. Voldegra appears only long enough to take their acquisitions back to its own world, only to be returned if the demon is offered something it values more in exchange. A few mortals seek it out to trade for such items, especially because they are always returned seemingly untouched by the passage of time since they were collected. Unfortunately for those who desire relics of ages past from Voldegra's collection, it is difficult to guess what it might want in return.
Additional Information:
When it speaks, Voldegra uses bold. This is to help readers distinguish between when the demon is speaking and when it is letting vessels speak for themselves.
Voldegra's vessels on are few and scattered all over the world. Here are those currently relevant to its presence on Manta Carlos.
Shi Mei
Alice Corbie
