## Metadata Name: Pontifex Ash Holding: None Office: None ## Background You were born third, to a father with many names. Though most called him Plaguesmith, you and your siblings knew him as Kiwa. That likely has something to do with the fact that, among yourselves, you never use the term Sapient Plague and don't consider his greatest works to have been those few plagues to which he did lend his hand. You aren't a plague at all, none of you are. Well, maybe the [[Crimson Breath]], but they've always been a bit of an odd duck. No, what you are is a sword. You came into being more than two hundred million years ago, a time so distant not even you can really conceive of it even after having lived the entire span. You were born in terror, a pattern scribed on a cloud of semi-autonomous drones as a peerless monster drew close, lips parted in anticipation. When you took your first breath, it was to inhale a star. When you breathed out, you killed countless people with nuclear fire and choking ash. Before you could finish a second breath, Her Majesty had arrived in Her fury. Of the battle which followed you remember little. Last-born, the size of a red giant and growing with every instant, impossibly immune to all the rules which governed you and the others. The Hivemother, her trillion children birthing a trillion children each. The Crimson Breath, a disease so virulent not even She was immune. Kiwa proud and scornful, cursing light itself to pull Her apart in a storm of singularities as he taunted Her with threats you never understood and have long since forgotten. When the battle was joined, you had five siblings and one father. When the battle ended, you had three siblings and the galaxy had a Plaguesmith. Your dead siblings' names were destroyed, their memories wiped from even your ability to recover. Since then, you have spread peacefully through the cosmos, colonizing planets of ash and dust only when you're absolutely certain they have no potential for natural life of their own. Like all omniphages (your preferred term for yourselves), you cannot grow larger than twelve light-seconds in diameter. Any larger, and you begin to spontaneously bud independent child swarms. As a result, you're fairly certain that the galaxy is full of your children, grand children, and so on. Very few humans bother to look at highly volcanic worlds, which means that they have little reason to discover your spread. At least a billion planets across the galaxy host Acolytes of Ash, all of whom recognize their Pontifex as the first and greatest. The death of the Plaguesmith is the first time in hundreds of millions of years that you have had reason to interact with humans. You don't care for them, humans by and large are fragile and prone to screaming. You heard a rumor that the Plaguesmith had a hand in his own death. If that's true, then you'll take that up with Kiwa personally somehow, but first you're going to find every other person even vaguely involved and feed them to a volcano one bite at a time. The only people you trust at all are the ones from Starforge Hall. They may not have known the father, but at least they're his descendants and heirs. Perhaps they'll help you find the killers. ## Mechanics ### Asset: [[Omniphage|Omniphage]] You are an Omniphage, a child of the Plaguesmith better known to the galaxy at large as a "Sapient Plague," or by the derogatory term "grey goo." What you really are is a cloud of nanobots larger than many stars, capable of maintaining connection to small, detached parts of yourself. You can, for example, attend a gathering in a roughly humanoid form while the rest of your impossible bulk waits a few convenient light-seconds away. At the same time, your wroth is a terrible thing to behold. Devouring an entire Fleet is well within your power, and indeed falls under the heading of "tasty and nutritious." You can participate in any [[Combat]], and the side on which you participate gains one advantage, plus an additional advantage for every participant on the other side(s) of the combat, except other Sapient Plagues. In any one-on-one scenario, you automatically win unless your opponent has an Asset which explicitly allows them to fight Sapient Plagues (including this one). ### Lien: [[Nanobody Likes Me|Nanobody Likes Me]] Being a sentient cloud of nanobots capable of devouring most starships without a fight can make it surprisingly difficult to make friends. Many Holdings believe Sapient Plagues are no more than living curses, monsters to be fought and killed at any cost. The truth is that Sapient Plagues tend to eat dead matter until they grow to a maximum size, bud off a few children, and then retire to a quiet life drinking radiation from dying stars. Fortunately (or unfortunately, given your perspective and current appetite), most of the Holdings with monster-hunting cultures aren't really up to the task of killing a Sapient Plague, even with the element of surprise and plenty of lead-up. Statistically, Sapient Plagues mostly eat in self-defense. Even so, when you are a member of a [[GiC Holding]], that Holding automatically loses one advantage at the start of any [[Negotiation]] or [[Endeavor]], as the galaxy looks on in suspicion at those who would harbor such a power. ## Themes These themes are offered to help inform roleplay, but do not carry a mechanical effect. - Purpose-Built People - Cycles of Violence - Loss and Grief