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Half-Siblings
Rex's father, Cedric Staines, now in his early 50s, has had at least one child since he was 20 years old. All of them were subjected to experimentation as part of his attempt to create a 'third race', a new species that could stand between humans and monsters. His goal is to create a dominant species that possesses the best features of both humanity and monsterdom, with advanced infrastructure capabilities of humans and the ability to pass on memories and values to following generations as monsters can. Despite the torturous nature of his experiments, he thoroughly brainwashes his children into unquestioning loyalty, and most consider him the saviour of mankind for his work. They are often given key positions in the Wishing government to solidify his control of the police state. Most of the siblings have different mothers, all of whom named their children because Cedric prefers to think of them by their numbers.
They're quite a diverse group, their mothers being from all around the world, and there are few traits common to the whole bunch. However, recurring features include possessing Cedric's eyes (a brown so dark it's close to black), his jet black hair and being extremely tall. Due to the experiments performed on them, many have unusual characteristics which range from small features to completely inhuman appearances. Many struggle with sleep, due to nasty side effects of monsterisation- the memories of ancient monsters and their personalities, preserve through slime, run through their minds when they try to sleep. As a result, being tall, dark-haired, dark-eyed and looking like an insomniac is the height of fashion in Wishing.
Most of Cedric's children have animal themes of 'gross', 'weird', or 'unwanted' animals to represent how little he values their lives. These needn't be overly disgusting-a butterfly qualifies simply by being an insect.
Gross Animal Options
Skunk, anglerfish, gulper eel, haggish, dung beetle, cockroach, housefly, robber fly, horsefly, aye-aye, proboscis monkey, snub nosed monkey, iron-clad beetle, surinam toad, star nosed mole, naked mole rat, chinese giant salamander, stone fish, shoebill, vulture.
Name: Jules-Henri Sanson
Age: 33
Summary: The eldest of Cedric's children, Jules-Henri was subjected to a relatively crude monsterisation process. He was, since a young age, forced to fight monsters until his body soaked in slime day after day. This was an attempt to replicate possibly apocryphal stories of monster hunters gaining monster traits. It is debatable if this had any effect on him at all, but Jules-Henri became a dangerous warrior all the same. Of all his father's children, Jules-Henri has the most understanding of how evil his father is but dares not defy him for fear of leaving his siblings without his protection. Officially a 'special agent' of undefined jurisdiction, Jules-Henri is sent out on missions across the world- partially to keep him from being a rebellious influence on the others. He has long since given up hope of life in a sane world and has let his mind slip, a grinning grim reaper. Very strong in battle, and a survival expert who has a great deal of experience in traversing the post-apocalyptic world. Jules-Henri uses a wide variety of mismatched armour and weapons he took from his opponents on his adventures. Despite his dark nature, he cares deeply for his family. He bears some resemblance to an older Rex and like him takes after their father in appearance- dark-haired, dark-eyed and astoundingly tall (though shorter than Rex by a few inches), though he has exceptionally long, shaggy hair and in contrast to Rex has a constant wild smile.
Theme: Acanthaspis petax, a species of assassin bug. Acanthaspis petax wears the corpses of its victims like armour, as Jules-Henri wears his joy at his miserable existence as a murderer. Like the bug, he's a deadly opponent who uses the remnant of his foes.
Other: Name for Jules-Henri Desfourneaux, the last public executioner of France, and Charles-Henri Sanson, perhaps the most famous executioner of French history. If I was gonna play him, I'd use Crow from A Post-Apocalyptic Journey as a PB.
Name: Rose & Lily Fredricks
Age: 22
Summary: Identical twins, a little older than Rex. Their identical genetic makeup presented an opportunity for Cedric to test the advantages of monsterisation. Lily was subjected to monster cell infusion while Rose was not. They were both, amongst other tests of capability, forced to fight slowly increasingly dangerous identical monsters. Rose awakened Human Power quite early to survive, and Lily possessed superhuman endurance and durability from the experimentation. The twins were kept in separate observation cells but could see and speak to one another. They forged a very close relationship and dreamed of the day that they would be allowed to hold hands. They believed the only way to achieve that lofty goal was to do well in their tests. Eventually, Rose was fatally wounded, and a heavily injured Lily broke out to hold her sister- the monster cells, already compatible with Lily, also merged with Rose, while Rose's desperate Human Power overflowing awakened Lily to Human Power too. With the initial experiment ruined, they were further studied for a short period and eventually put into public service at age 14. Both operate as members of Wishing's police force, seeking out and eliminating dissidents.
The twins are identical in appearance but possess very different personalities. Rose, whose animal them is a butterfly, is lead more by her instincts and easily distracted- she often wanders off and follows her whims and is something of a Pollyanna. Lily, on the other hand, is much more focused to the point of ignoring everything but her latest obsession and will bash against a problem repeatedly, with a darker outlook. The pair operate best together and often hold hands, to prevent Rose from wandering off or to drag Lily away. They're about 6'9 and have the signature dark eyes and black hair of Cedric, with rather lanky proportions. Rose dresses colourfully and Lily usually in monochrome, in different flavours of ostentatious- Rose in elaborate dresses, Lily in stylish suits (often with fur trim). Rose is the more viciously direct, preferring up-close combat and Lily is a more inclined to ranged battle. Rose is, despite her cheerful demeanour, more intimidating and calm. Lily is somewhat more energetic and tends to scream a lot. Due to their shared monsterised blood, they have an identical mutation of extremely long and dangerous tongues.
Theme: Lily's theme is a moth (a little Death's-head hawkmoth
flavoured) and Rose a butterfly (with a touch of Peacock butterfly)- similar but different, equally flighty but in different ways.
Other: If I was gonna play them I'd pick Koumori Kuroko from Murciélago as a PB. Due to their different outfits and personalities, it's difficult to confuse the two, but as a running joke, the twins don't seem to realise that. They either go out of their way to clarify which one they are or, more bizarrely, get confused as to which one they are themselves.
Name: Cynthia Eskola
Age: 29
Summary: Cynthia had slime injected directly into her brain in the hopes of understanding how monsters pass on memories. Instead, her brain became capable of supporting itself independently of her body, absorbing the rest of her for nutrients. Developing a shell-like skull, and able to move on her own, Cynthia soon discovered she could gain control of other lifeforms. In human-sized targets, this involves leaving her shell, squeezing herself into the target's skull and absorbing their brain to replace it. In larger examples, such as beasts or monsters, she can find a space inside them and link to their nervous system. She keeps an extensive collection of host bodies on life support for various purposes.
Cynthia enjoys swapping identities, and her hobby living several lives at once. Her family is aware of her true nature, and are often trying to get her to be her 'true self', which she insists there is no such thing and wishes they would accept her as who she feels like at that moment.
Theme: The Cymothoa exigua, or tongue eating louse. A rather grisly aquatic parasite, it severs a fish's tongue and replaces it, attaching itself to the blood supply. Aside from the very literal relation, the tongue eating louse transforms from male to female, independent life form to a body part and back again throughout its life.
Other: Delightfully gross, right? Obviously no PB choice here. Though I've used 'she' to refer to her, she's genderfluid, but considers her bodiless brain form to a woman.
Name: Temujin Ganbat
Age: 16
Summary: Fed on slime from a young age, Temujin (usually called Jin by his siblings) has unusual biology in which his body does not have dead materials- in other words, his nails, hair, teeth etc. are all alive, possess senses and can be manipulated. Some of this is torturous- he cannot stand eating solid foods and compares cutting his nails to having his fingers cut off. Luckily, he can retract and grow his teeth and nails to a certain extent, as well as having self-healing joints, making him very flexible. However, his hair is the star of the show. It is entirely prehensile, and the sensitivity to the environment give him fantastic awareness of his surroundings- they can feel movement in the air, detect by touch, have senses of smell and taste. The hair is more durable than steel cable by default, but he can use Human Power to enhance this further.
A rather small young man, who looks all the tinier beside his larger siblings. This, and his large-eyed baby face, make him appear quite young (and cute), though his vast mass of black hair that can engulf his body gives him a strange appearance. He is one of the few siblings paler than Rex. He is polite and kind, though nervous and shy (especially around girls) even being courteous to his victims when sent to assassinate them and soothingly reassures them the pain and fear will be over soon when ending their lives. He has a cautious attitude and carefully plans the smallest action before he moves- then acts as swiftly as possible. This applies to both job as a hired killer and something as simple as crossing a crowded room. He lacks social skills but tries earnestly to make friends, though struggles with breaking the ice so often hovers in the periphery of those he wants to be close to.
Theme: Jin's theme is a spider- Darwin's Bark Spider to be precise. Known for their extremely strong webs of extreme size, you wouldn't notice them but the webs are everywhere. The males are noted to be 'eager to please' females, but extremely fearful of them. His hair, of course, operates as his 'web' but his tendency to be shy and fearful of girls in particular, reflects he represents a male spider (as male spiders are usually smaller and preyed upon by the female of the species). Spiders are also, to me at least, the perfect balance between offputting and adorable.
Other: If I was going to play him, I'd pick Inaba Ryo of Kengan Asura. As a running joke, people would often know he's around but not exactly where- just like when a spider hides behind your bed. There's probably one right now.
Special guest creators-
Diiiiiiiiid somebody say Ideas? :D
Name: Vesper Veld
Age: 18
Summary: Nonbinary, their gender is "no, thank you". The result of an experiment focused on the capacity of monsters to transmit information directly from mind to mind as part of their generational memories. While the experiment ultimately failed to create a true telepath, Vesper does constantly project a kind of psychic don't-notice-me field. Essentially, no matter where they currently are or what they're doing, they seem normal and ordinary. If they're in a secure facility, they must be some random security grunt with appropriate clearance. If they're in a hospital, they're obviously medical staff. If they're in your house, clearly you have a roommate you forgot about. It's fine, it's just business as usual, nothing to see here.
The effect only lasts while in their immediate presence- as soon as they walk away, everyone influenced will be able to realize they weren't actually supposed to be there if they bother to think about it at all. Being aware of who they are and what they're capable of does not actually prevent this effect unless you ward against outside mental influence in advance. Cedric tends to forget who they are and how they're related to him even more than his normal tendency to lose track of which kid is who.
They're a bit gloomy and sharp-tongued, but they have an oddly pleasant personality quirk of being very nice to any janitorial staff, retail workers, and other service industry people they encounter.
This is mostly because they tend to get mistaken for these kinds of people a lot, and therefore have a lot of sympathy for their struggles. (Including by Cedric. Especially by Cedric.)
They don't particularly like their father, or even admire him, they just accept it as a fact of life that he's too powerful to ever go against. It would never occur to them to abandon or disobey him in any way because they have never doubted that such an act would be utterly futile. They regard their service to him as something kind of like a vaguely shitty retail job you need in order to put food on the table- it's not pleasant, but there aren't any better options and it's not bad enough to risk quitting anyway, so might as well stick around and try to enjoy the parts that are actually decent-ish.
They're very thin and generally angular in build. Pale skin, tall by normal standards but probably on the lower end of average for their siblings, usually wears their long hair in two high, thin pigtails. The experiment happened to give them dark, stripy markings on their skin and a pair of retractable spikes in their wrists, but they look otherwise human. Not much of an actual direct combatant, they're pretty fragile compared to most of their siblings. Which is probably still fairly healthy for a normal person, but hey. When unable to avoid combat, their strategy is generally just "stab and run away". They excel at infiltration, reconnaissance, and theft- particularly the last. Almost all their missions for Cedric involve stealing something, and they're prone to mild kleptomania when stressed.
This may be due to the influence of their mother, a nouveau-riche fruit merchant and social climber who valued wealth and flashy material success above all else. She attempted to use Cedric to further her personal ambitions, which worked out very well for her right up until it abruptly didn't. Points for trying, though.
Theme: Wasps, specifically yellowjackets.
They'll sting painfully and repeatedly if threatened, but ultimately their venom doesn't pose much danger to a human unless they're allergic to it. Many types of wasp are brood parasites, dumping their children in other insects' nests and letting them raise them as their own. There are several yellowjacket species that deliberately mimic more aggressive varieties in order to deter predators. In addition, they frequently feed by invading beehives to rob them of honey and larvae. Apocryphally (most notably according to Terry Pratchett) bees will struggle mightily to prevent wasps from entering the hive if they are noticed, but simply assume they belong there if the wasp sneaks in undetected.
On a more punny series of notes, they're unusually thin ("wasp-waisted") and have a bitter, unfriendly personality (they're "waspish"). And while she wasn't literally a white anglo-saxon Protestant, their mother's intense materialism and focus on social class make her pretty close to your stereotypical WASP-y suburbanite.
Other: They probably have a favorite jacket which is literally yellow, because visual puns are comedy gold.
Name: Laelia Cinna
Age: 28
Summary: In charge of a number of Cedric's "softer" projects, she's what you might call a secular nun. She runs a bureaucratic order that is essentially a literal cult devoted to Cedric Staines, even above and beyond the standard cult of personality that most Wishing citizens are indoctrinated into from birth. They handle pretty much anything in Wishing that might be considered a charitable project- orphanages, distributing the appropriate government-issued allotment of basic rations and other necessities to the poor and needy, and the care of all those who require long-term supervision due to issues with their mental and/or physical health.
They revere Cedric as the pinnacle of humanity, and preach a philosophy that centers around taking care of "his" world for him, as that is the highest duty one can aspire to. Therefore, the virtuous and admirable thing is to handle all petty matters so that he need never trouble himself with them.
Members take an entrance exam at a young age to become intern-initiates (or "internitiates"), doing the appropriate novice duties of petty paperwork and making coffee. As they age and grow in experience, they can take further tests in order to become full devotees, and then to progress in rank.
Basically think ancient China's scholar-gentry, but nuns instead of noblemen.
As for the "reverend mother" herself... well, she's got some issues.
The experiment that produced her was intended to study the link between Human Power and strength of emotion- why do hot-blooded protagonist types always seem to pull a second wind out of nowhere? Let's do mad science to a child and find out.
The study produced very little in the way of conclusive results, but it did provide her with the ability to grow indefinitely in strength as she became more emotional. Essentially, she's the Hulk in a nun's habit- the more upset she gets, the stronger she gets. She could also tap into the power of her positive emotions, but has never had the opportunity to figure this out.
Doesn't have a monstrous form, either by default or as she increases in power, but she does have very sharp, claw-like fingernails that she normally covers up with a neat and tidy pair of white gloves. If she gets really upset she tends to end up accidentally shredding them, which she finds highly embarrassing. Accordingly, she has a nervous habit of folding her hands together in front of her when something's bothering her.
She was once- she believed at the time- happily married to a man who had proved himself one of her father's most worthy subjects. In truth, her husband was secretly a revolutionary who despised Cedric, and had worked his way up through the ranks and into marriage with a blood relative of Wishing's ruler in the hopes of eventually getting close enough to assassinate him. He came very close, but his attempt ultimately failed when his wife reached out and pulled his head clean off his shoulders. This act of vile betrayal and her immediate willingness to kill her beloved in order to protect Cedric has been enshrined in local popular culture as the pinnacle of familial duty, and she is highly respected for it. This is likely what led to Cedric putting her in the position she currently holds.
The truth of the matter is slightly more complicated- though he had intended from the start to kill Cedric Staines, the revolutionary did genuinely love the woman he had married in order to achieve this task, and part of the reason why he hated him so deeply was for all the ways he had mistreated his beloved wife. She, in turn, did not actually intend to kill him- she just reached out and tried to yank him back, restrain him, but the shock and despair of seeing her husband trying to kill her father had increased her strength far beyond what she had anticipated, resulting in accidental decapitation.
Thanks to the sunk cost fallacy, she's mostly convinced herself that she really meant to do that, and has doubled down on devoting her life to Cedric. The one and only area in which she has ever acted even vaguely almost maybe against his wishes is also the last remaining thing her husband left her:
Their daughter, Cattleya.
Technically, Cedric never actually asked her if she was pregnant, nor did he ever mention to her that he had a particular interest in being made aware of any grandchildren he might happen to have. So, she can justify to herself, the fact that she chose not to tell him about anything so distracting and bothersome as her bearing That Traitor's child really wasn't disobedient at all. The tiny little part of herself that reacted with horror at the idea of her child being put through the same trauma she experienced clearly doesn't exist, and even if it did it certainly wouldn't have influenced her decisions.
The choice to tell no one, including Cattleya herself, and discreetly have the child listed as a foundling orphan and put under her care with all the other children the order was responsible for was clearly just the professional thing to do. That's all.
Theme: A praying mantis. Specifically Hymenopus coronatus, the orchid mantis.
One of the few insect species known to practice parental care, they guard their eggs aggressively. Beautiful and delicate-looking, but a very dangerous predator. And, despite the well-known reputation of female mantises for being literal maneaters, the instinct to bite their mate's head off is actually triggered by intense stress- it only occurs when the female mantis is otherwise distressed, not automatically whenever they mate.
Also, the obvious "preying/praying" pun for her being both basically-a-nun and a trained killer.
Other: I don't actually know what this PB is from, but a friend of mine used it for her beautiful sadistic villainess OC and it seems about right.
Gross Animal Suggestions-