Vine (Template)

https://glowfic.com/templates/1496

About Vine (Template)

One of st753m's main templates.  They tend to be ancient immortal wanderers, religious figures who happen to be atheist, or dragons.  Always very tall.  

Clusters

Vines have three personality states / subtemplates which they can inhabit.  While other character subtemplates form based on initial childhood environment and become unchangeable for an individual instance, any Vine can turn into any state from any other, much like water can change between solid, liquid, and gas based on temperature and pressure.  This isn't immediate, but tends to be a gradual shift within a few weeks to a few months.  The states and their requirements:

All Vine either start out as Frost or Steam, as children are inherently unable to leave their initial circumstances for a number of years.  It is possible but not common for Vines to be twins of each other separated at birth with one starting as Frost and the other as Steam.  

Personality

Vines are Good, in DnD terms, though are willing to perform evil acts for immortality.  While their aesthetic is Chaotic, and some may think of themselves as such, their typical actions are either Lawful or Neutral, depending on circumstance.  They acknowledge the collective power of society; while they don't often like governments, they will obey out of a mix of convenience and fear. 

They are very adaptable.  They bounce back from trauma unusually quickly and completely.  

Their primary (and often only) major goal is to attain immortality, and to survive once they have it.  They are willing to stop at nothing to achieve their own survival.  This assumes that they are in a world where the afterlife is not present and provable - in worlds such as the standard DnD universe where immortality is known they consider that sufficient (Death in DnD is just getting trapped in another dimension, which is a shame but not Horrible).  They are generous with excess, giving away anything they don't need, though do not overstretch or sacrifice themselves.  

All Vines are genderless, though typically use the pronouns of their birth gender for convenience.  They all inhabit a narrow spectrum between pansexual and sex-positive gray ace.  They have zero kinks of their own, and are typically turned off by anything 'mean' sounding like bondage, even in worlds where they don't have trauma associated with them.  They are strongly submissive in the d/s-as-gender-equivalent sense.  They are attracted to people who are Strong and Competent. 

Vines dislike nicknames, though they don't mind their names being shifted to reflect foreign pronunciations.

They believe strongly in people being treated equally. 

They also care strongly about the truth, and in making sure that people know the truth.  This can conflict with their practical needs - Vines often have secrets that need to be kept for their safety or goals.  When this happens, they do ultimately choose their safety over honesty, but are unhappy about it.  This makes them very curious.  They are good at keeping secrets when it's important to do so, or if the information is not relevant to share.  

They are slightly below average intelligence.  That doesn't mean stupid, and they can learn even complex things, but it takes them longer to learn them.  Their memory in particular can be bad, especially for names.  They have a knack for picking up sculpting and magic which alters the body.

They prefer practical things.  Aesthetics are only important in that others react to them.  This can cause shapeshifting Vine some difficulty with uncanny valley unless they are working with an existing model.

They very much also prefer practical reasons for things: "it feels good/bad" is rarely an acceptable answer for them.  This puts them at odds with things such as Amentan pollution instinct.  Policies should be backed up by facts and only facts.

They often dislike vehicles, particularly spaceships.  Ones where they can't stop without harm (such as airplanes) are especially bad, followed by ones going through inhospitable terrain such as boats for Vines without gills.  

Frost Sub-template

(Occurs when trapped and unsafe)  Element: Water (frozen)

Paranoid and nervous.  They tend to have a lot of phobias.  Germophobia is a major and likely one.  They are clingy, and will often find the most competent person and follow them around and be as Helpful as Possible.  

Perhaps it is coincidence, but Frost vines seem unusually likely to cause destruction.  Examples include the destruction of the Setebre Empire in Murune, and Verity-and-Araeneve's vandalism.

Water Sub-template

(Occurs when not trapped) Element: Water (liquid)

They are curious.  They are interested in exploring and studying things.  Their study habits are flitting and capricious - learning just enough to satisfy their curiosity before wandering to another shiny looking object.  

Their standard behavior is to act somewhat like a sidequesting character in a sandbox game such as Skyrim, wandering around and helping with anything that catches their attention and being generous with anything they don't themselves need. 

They can also be somewhat flakey and unwilling to commit to things.  That said, their wanderlust will never take them from a comfortable place to a less comfortable place - when they leave, it's because their previous location has become untenable.  For example, Ara'Vine spent nearly a full century at the Olivine Monastery and only left due to the growing corruption and mismanagement. 

Steam Sub-template

(Occurs when trapped but safe) Element: Water (steam)

They are effective and ruthless at accomplishing their goals.  Typically very frustrated, easily annoyed, and sarcastic, they are powered by spite.  Their dislike and hatred is often directed at groups who seek to limit or interfere with the transmission of true information or who perpetuate inequality.  They are often outspoken atheists.  

Name Attractors

Vines have names whose meanings translate to truth, honest, or other related concepts.  

Vine is a word from my fake language.  Vi means truthful/honest, and Ne is a generic masculine name ending syllable.  The original Murune Vine changes the exact pronunciation slightly over time (as not all places he lives have the same sounds, and his culture did not have issues with anglicizing that modern earth does) but it is always two syllables long.

Other names which fit this pattern: 
Male: Amin, Adil, Liem
Female: Verity, Alethea, Sidika, Sati

Screen names have no overarching pattern, and there have so far been no large-scale interdimensional gatherings which have involved two Vines with the same name.  

Attractors

The primary theme of their magics are Survival.  This can take several forms.  The platonic ideal would be the abilities of SCP-682 (Hard-to-Destroy Reptile).  Healing, durability, or barrier-based powers are also likely.  

A secondary power focus is to focus on things that provide Information.  For example, while the Murune Vine's power is predominantly about shapeshifting and healing, it has an aspect which allows him to know about the inner workings of the human body, which he uses to teach others about medicine.  

Their associated element is most often Water.

Vines are always very tall for their species.  They tend to be decently muscular and also have a reasonable layer of fat, more like a weightlifter or heavy-weight boxer than a bodybuilder.  Other than dragons, they are rarely something that can fly or jump, preferring forms which are more tank-like.  

Associated Characters

Notable Vines

Trivia

The first Vine instance was the Murune one.  

Existing characters who inspired the initial building block traits were SCP 682 and Peter Pan, some of which changed as the character developed.  

Verity-and-Araeneve

suicune.png

Setting: Daémon
Species: Human, with Suicune Daémon 
Facecast: Angel Coulby, pokemon TCG artwork
Screen name: crystal-clear-water

History

She was born to the local Nion alt and an anonymous sperm donor on the sixteenth of Watermoon (approx. May 17 on an Earth calendar).  She was an only child.  They grew up poor, living in a single room in one of the less fancy Halls of the ship Column of Summer.  Verity often spent her evenings wandering around alone while her mother entertained clients.

She settled at age 15.  They'd been vandalizing a statue, and were running after getting spotted.  Various church groups and political factions began trying to get her on their side for various things, and this also attracted a lot of people trying to invade her privacy.  Azure befriended her in order to teach her proper etiquette for the parties and events she now had to attend, and was the only one she didn't completely ignore.  

Their education up to 15 was typical.  Because she settled relatively late and had no particular passions or skills for any field, she had been put in generic classes rather than specialist ones.  After settling as a Legendary, she switched to home schooling for the last year of standard school then began taking classes in law - the one non-religious thing Legendaries are required to do being to select and manage the Fleet's judges.  

Her mother died when she was 19, of an unspecified illness.  At the moment of standard glowfic thread start, she is 20 or 21.  Verity now lives alone in one of the large and fancy apartments in Tower of Autumn.  Her standard duty is to purify the canals and water of the ships on rotation, as well as participate in various ceremonies as needed and handle the occasional judiciary thing.  Her free time is spent creating or playing VR games and weightlifting.  She has relatively few friends other than Azure and Alizara.  

Personality

Is in the Vine template, and typically starts in the Steam-vine subtemplate.  As with any Steam-vine, they are unhappy and their primary guiding emotion is frustration at being trapped.

Verity is genderless, and indifferent to pronouns (default is she/her, mostly to avoid confusion with Araeneve and the plural they).  Araeneve is agender, prefers they/them.  Verity is pansexual, and typical for a Vine in what they want in a potential partner.  Due to their history with having to deal with gossip and busybodies after settling as a Legendary, they are less prone to casual hookups than either Vines in general or the average member of their culture.

She is an atheist and greatly dislikes both the respect given to her and the requirements of the church.  They regularly want to act out against various rules they consider unreasonable, such at the requirement to wear daemon-matching clothing.  Azure mostly manages to talk them down from causing any real scenes, though they do complain a lot.

She compulsively rearranges her furniture, and keeps large stacks of empty boxes around which she'll occasionally knock over and re-stack.  She likes not being findable and typically leaves her phone at home.  

Not being able to duel other daemons has likely had some negative psychological effects.  They are simultaneously overwhelmed with too many people paying attention to them and too many social things they hate, while being isolated from things they would like.  

Abilities

Araeneve

Suicune are legendary, which means they are unusually powerful compared to non-legendary daemons.  Suicune in particular are especially 'tank-like' in how much damage their barriers can absorb before they faint.  Araeneve can easily carry Verity, and could carry or tow more passengers if not for the issue with daemon touching.  They resist flinching.

They can walk on water, and purify water which they walk on.  This goes by what 'should' be in the water, so they are able to remove salt that has seeped into fresh water while keeping the proper amount of salt in ocean water, and so on.  [it is undetermined how far this effect reaches at once, but isn't infinite.  Perhaps somewhere between 3 and 10 meters?]

They have an excellent sense of smell which is as good as a dog's.  This includes the ability to smell fear or sickness, identify people through scents, and track people across long distances.

Blizzard - A large swath of land is encased in a vortex of extremely cold wind and shards of razor-sharp ice for about 6 seconds.

Surf - Potable water is produced beneath Araeneve's front paws, rising up as a controlled bubble, then shot outwards in front of them.  Capable of spraying at a wide angle and with bone-breaking force.  

Reflect - Creates a force field about 2 meters diameter which causes physical things travelling through it to lose much of their momentum.  It hangs in the air where it's created, and dissipates after a short while.

Rest - Araeneve falls asleep, and in so doing quickly recovers their barrier.

Verity

Has some basic programming knowledge, and skill with creating simple VR games with whatever the Fleet's equivalent of RPG Maker and the like would be.  

Is educated in basic things required of a Legendary, including knowledge of the Fleet legal system and the differences between the religious denominations recognized on the fleet.  She also knows a fair bit about how water is cycled and handled.  

Appearance

Verity is 6' 1" (186 cm).  She has a broad build with a lot of muscle and a layer of fat.

Araeneve is 6' 7" (201 cm).  A standard suicune.

Verity relies on Azure to do her clothes shopping, as she hates it.  Like everyone in the fleet, she wears the colors of her daemon (blue, teal, purple, white details).  She prefers pants rather than skirts so she can ride her daemon.  

Associated Characters

Trivia

crystal-clear-water refers to Pokemon Crystal, the game with Suicune as it's mascot, as well as Suicune's water purifying ability.  

Araeneve's name is from my fictional language of Setebran, created for the setting Murune.  It breaks down into:
 a- = negate, opposer, opposite
 ra = the gods, the will of the gods, the plan of the universe, capital-c Creation
 -en = doer, actor, one who does
 eve = wolf, predator, hunter
[[[[opposite of [the will of the gods]] one who does] wolf] = wolf who acts against the gods
It should be pronounced approximately ah-RAH-en-EV-feh, with the R being halfway between an R and an L, and the last sound being a short half-spoken puff of air rather than a full syllable. 

It is also a portmanteau of Ara (opposite of creation = Destroyer) and Raen (enactor of a god's will = Champion), two of the titles which the Murune Vine has used.