Death

Time

Nature

Emotion

Energy

Thought

Overview

Death is unquestionably the most powerful of the Gods that roam the vast Universe. Since the ages of the Gods are determined by power, not birth order, he found himself considered the eldest and de facto leader, much to his dismay. Despite the creation of Soulbound being his idea, he's entirely too busy to flit his time away making any himself between his various self-inflicted responsibilities that he refuses to delegate into the hands of the brats surrounding him.

Appearance

Death is a tall, athletic humanoid with black, shaggy hair that looks like it's never seen a brush and jet black eyes with white pupils. The skin of his upper body is medium brown with black tattooing across his face and torso, and his lower body is black fabric that he often leaves flowing like robes but can form into legs if the situation calls for it. The four copper-colored tentacles that extrude from his back seem to move with a life of their own, but they spend most of their time concealed beneath the Soul Beacon Cloak, so the Gods often forget he even has them. He favors dark clothing with a lot of belts to hold his various tools, chief of which are the Elyr and the Book of Names. He also sports a number of silver charms and trappings that serve purposes unknown to the rest of the Gods, and his handsome face is usually hidden beneath the Soul Beacon Cloak, with only the disapproving curve of his mouth visible to the Universe at large. He's considered devastatingly handsome by the rest of the Gods, but he's so grumpy that nobody dares do anything about it.

Personality

Death has perpetually Had Enough, but that certainly doesn't stop his siblings from pushing his buttons at every opportunity. His demeanor was always chilly, and the events that followed the departure of the Eldest pushed him to downright icy, but his reliability and impartiality make him the ideal leader for the mercurial Gods. He also has the sheer power to back up his harsh ultimatums, and the other Gods often find themselves bullied into cooperation with Death, each other, or both. Very few dare test his paper-thin temper outright, though fudging the rules a little is never out of the question when they think he’s not looking.

When he needs a quiet place to work away from the constant arguing and other infuriating noise, he has several pocket dimensions in the dark spaces outside of magic veins that he disappears to for short vacations. Many of them are outside the Timeline for when he really doesn't want to be disturbed. The only downside to the quiet is that it leaves him with too much time to think about things he'd rather not think about, so his self-imposed exiles never last for long. Like all the others, he wants to be reunited with the Eldest someday, but unlike the others, he remembers that he had no room for fears or worries when he was near them. He aches for that simple, unplagued existence once more, and if he's lucky, he'll be able to forget everything in their light.

Relationships

TIME

Death and Time, as the Universe's most ornery Gods, often made for a contentious pair, but there was no denying that when they could put aside their differences, Things Got Done. Their systems compliment each other beautifully, and Death maintained a grudging respect for Time's attention to detail and thoroughness. Death doesn't spend much time dwelling over his mistakes, since taking care of the entire Universe means that more than a few are going to be made, but he can't quite convince himself that allowing Time to dabble with corruption wasn't his fault when he knew, he knew it wasn't a good idea. It's one of many things he shoves in the closet of his mind and locks the door on, hopefully to never deal with it again.

NATURE

Arguably his closest sibling due to her kind and patient personality and her deft handling of God conflicts, Death leaned on Nature more than he cared to admit. She listened to his venting with understanding and gentleness, and on the rare occasions he truly lost his temper, she was the balm the other Gods depended on to bring their elder brother back from the brink. After her death, he grew significantly colder, and no one dares to bring her up in his presence.

EMOTION

Death's relationship with Emotion was largely business-related in the beginning, and even then only when he couldn't avoid having a conversation with her. Their personalities were oil and water, as he was quick to lose patience with her dramatics, and she was an instigator in plenty of issues he was forced to mediate. After Emotion completely withdrew from the Universe to throw herself into work, however, not even he could ignore that she was dealing with her trauma the exact same way he did with a lot less reason to keep going. He makes it a point to check in on her regularly, and even though the conversations these days are very one-sided, it's important to him that she knows he's there whenever she decides it's time to come home.

ENERGY

Energy was just another face in the crowd for a long while, but after Entropy happened and Energy approached Death with his quiet but wild ideas, Death found himself relying more and more on Energy's good sense, calm objectiveness, and astute observations. He's no Nature, but he's probably the closest thing Death has to a confidant in her absence, and Energy is more than clever enough to realize it and does what he can to stay in Death's good graces.

PLEASURE AND PAIN

Death knew the Pleasure and Pain twins were hopelessly enamored with him and made it a point to avoid them whenever possible, but when they approached him with a fairly minor but clever system, it softened his view of them. Their carefree natures and direct, fearless scolding are the only things that can convince Death to take a short break to spend time with them when he's getting particularly grumpy from overwork. He could still do without their fascination with touching, though.

Skills

His skills are numerous, from making souls and useful items to resolving Deepdark conflicts, with a little babysitting thrown in the mix. He's also the keeper of the Elyr, the Book of Names, and various other Eldest artifacts that he only loans out if he deems that the reason for their usage isn't hopelessly idiotic.

Death's Rules

1. Other Gods may not make or meddle with souls without Death's express permission. Period.
2. New systems must be approved by Death before mass implementation.
3. The Timeline is not to be circumvented or tampered with.
4. Entropy is not to be spoken with.
5. Deepdark outbreaks and new magic veins are to be reported immediately for destruction and protection, respectively.
6. All Eldest artifacts are to be handed over upon discovery.
7. Fate is not to be brought near Light Lock keys.

Major Events

AGE OF THE ELDEST

Death was hands-down the darling of the Eldest, lending credence to the theory that he was the first of the Gods created. He rather enjoyed the attention, though he wasn't always quick to show it, and spent most of his time being showered with affection and testing (read: playing with) various Eldest artifacts as they were created. He was fairly insular during this time, occupying himself with his parents and his toys, and everything seemed perfect. He's also one of the few Gods to actually remember the Motherlight, and maintains the same deference to her as the Eldest do.

AFTER THE CALL

After the Eldest were recalled to the Heart of the Universe, he found his position as favored child flipped to the mildly feared, lovingly disrespected, and extremely put-upon leader he is now. He was none too happy with the change, but had a sense of responsibility he couldn't ignore and, as he would often say later, not much sanity, so he slipped into the role and never left it. He was the first of the Gods to stop wallowing after the Eldest and the Motherlight disappeared and put forth the plan to fill the Universe with Soulbound to try and entice them back, and promptly found himself overwhelmed in the midst of all the problems that followed.

CREATION OF LIFE AND DEATH

In the explosion of Soulbound creation that followed, Death realized quickly that things were not going to work how he envisioned without a lot of help. Soulbound on less developed planets were living in misery with no way to ever escape it, and those on stable planets filled them in a blink of an eye. It was a free-for-all in terms of soul creation, with countless broken and defective souls filling the Universe, and physical vessels needed constant babysitting to keep them functional for the souls that resided within them. All of these issues required his attention to resolve, and despite all his power, he just couldn't keep up.

Fed up, he left his siblings to wallow in their own problems to seek out an Eldest artifact he'd used countless times in his youth; the Elyr, a pocket dimension container that could hold so much within it that it was practically limitless storage space. Initially used to transport magic across the Universe in bulk, Death reformed its interior in a veritable Eden for souls, a germ of an idea already forming on how to control the soul population in a reasonable, sustainable way. When he returned with the modified Elyr, he roped Time into his plan, and the two of them vanished into a quiet corner of the Universe to bring it to fruition.

The first order of business was the creation of the Soul Beacon Cloak, a garment that Death calibrated to attract free-floating Named souls so he could feed them into the Elyr when they weren't actively bound to a physical vessel. Next was figuring out a way to make the physical vessels actually release souls so one soul wasn't bound to a single, frail body. Initially, they designed their test Soulbound to release their souls when the physical vessel was too damaged to function properly, but this proved to be a nothing but band-aid to the exploding growth issue. After bandying ideas back and forth, Time devised the concept of aging and made the first version of the Timeline.

At first, the Timeline only served as a way to make physical vessels age until they "died" and released the Named soul within it to be held in the Elyr until rebirth, but when they tested it on a few Soulbound, they found that living in countless concurrent times drained the life force of the vessels at an alarming rate; Soulbound in the new system would barely have time to take their first breath, let alone live. Time refined it to completely overhaul how the entire Universe operated, inflicting a single time on everything and making events link together through strict cause and effect relationships. Everything in its influence slowed way, way down, bottlenecked to travel along this single line, but test Soulbound lived longer than a flicker. As a final act of mercy, Death wiped the memories of every soul entering the Elyr so those with good lives wouldn't pine for what they'd lost and those with awful lives wouldn't carry that burden any longer.

When they returned to their siblings with these new plans in tow, Time immediately blanketed the Universe in the Timeline and forced all the other, weaker siblings to stay in it, with only Death as the exception largely because Time couldn't force Death to do a damn thing. Death wasn't exactly impressed, but he had to admit that it was easier to manage all the problems when they were only happening a few at a time, so he let it go amidst an absolute uproar of outrage. The siblings were further incensed when Death announced he was taking over soul creation entirely, despite soul creation being hands-down the hardest part of making Soulbound. They were somewhat mollified, however, when he demonstrated the new life and death cycle that would allow souls to die naturally after living along the Timeline long enough or when their physical vessels were irreparably damaged, to be reborn across the Universe instead of chained to single planets for their entire existence. This eased the load on more developed planets by setting a soft limit on how many Soulbound could be active on the planet at a time, and gave those on less developed planets opportunity to have a calmer, more stable existence after a fairly short time. It forced Gods to be cleverer about how their Soulbound vessels were constructed, but that simply paved the way for Nature and several others to start working on plans of their own.

THE LIGHT LOCK

When Entropy suddenly appeared to ravage all that the Gods had worked for, Death was quick to rally his siblings for ideas on how to stop the dangerous being. Reasoning with it proved immensely ineffective, leading to the first deaths among the Gods. The realization that they were able to be erased from the Universe with no hope of recovery came as a heavy blow, and Death forbid anyone from venturing near it again until they had a plan. In this time, the first Nameless were created to further spread the insidious influence of the Deepdark, adding even more pressure. Death would be the one to venture out into the Universe again, looking for any artifact left behind by the Eldest that might help their cause. The Nameless dogged him relentlessly, Entropy having figured out who was holding all the Gods together in short order, but at last Death stumbled upon the Light Lock, a magic-nulling chain made of light with seven keys in each color of the rainbow that would be strong enough to bind the ultimate creature of the dark.

When he returned, he mobilized the rest of them with as much magic as they could hold and led the battle against Entropy to bind it. Not being used to warfare or any kind of truly serious confrontation, the Gods took a massive hit, losing nearly half their number in the struggle against Entropy's growing army of Nameless as well as its deeply destructive, corrosive form of magic. Nevertheless, the most powerful of the siblings did manage to bring Entropy under the influence of the Light Lock, which crippled it severely, removing its ability to do any magic or move through its Deepdark tunnels. Attempts to destroy it outright once it was bound ended poorly, so Death and several others transported Entropy to the farthest corner of the Deepdark and tied it there to remain trapped forevermore. Shortly after, the Gods claimed another victory by forcing the Deepdark under the influence of the Timeline, dramatically slowing its deadly sprawl.

TIME'S MADNESS

Once the dust settled, the Gods turned their attention to ridding the Universe of Entropy for good. Most ideas were vetoed as either too dangerous or too stupid the second they were put forth until Time suggested using Entropy's own destructive magic that riddled the Deepdark to wipe it out, with the thought that its magic would surely be powerful enough to hurt it directly. Death was reluctant, but Time and several others would not be swayed, so against his better judgement, he allowed a select few to accept the heady power of corruption.

Not only did the plan fail spectacularly, Time was soon driven mad by the corruption and began to attack other Gods on sight, seeking out the most powerful of them to destroy first under Entropy's command. Death was forced to slay his brother, and as a result, Entropy now keeps Time's beautiful blue eyes on prominent display within its amalgamous body as a sick trophy to torment the God. Checking that Entropy is still bound is the only task that Death delegates out, because he doesn't think he can handle looking into Time's eyes ever again.

overview

Despite being the second-eldest God, Time was never well-liked due to his smug superiority and controlling tendencies. Most Gods refused to speak with him unless they were in dire straits, much preferring Death's curt scolding to Time's sprawling lectures. However, his fussy and exacting nature made him an ideal builder of Soulbound and the planets they inhabited, as well as one of the very few Gods who could make a soul to Death's satisfaction. When Death needed a partner in crime to solve the burgeoning problems of too many Soulbound running around at once, Time was the obvious choice.

Appearance

Time was a tall, lean humanoid with ocean-blue eyes, considered hands-down the most beautiful in the Universe. His long blonde hair usually sported a number of braids studded with starfire, and his skin was porcelain pale. He would be considered delicately handsome if not for the controlling mess of his personality. To ensure he was the center of attention at all times wherever he went, he dressed in long, white, flowing robes edged in flaring nebulas and glittering stardust. His siblings actually preferred this arrangement, as it meant that they could see when he was coming and make themselves scarce in short order.

Personality

Time's personality left a lot to be desired. He was petty, mean, liked to hear himself talk, and generally made life miserable for anyone around him. His penchant for not playing well with others earned him almost complete isolation, but this left him plenty of time to discover his skill with making Soulbound and relax a little bit. Nature was the first to feel sorry for him, and teased her way through his icy demeanor in a way only she could. She figured out quickly that behind the aloof arrogance, Time's biggest desire was to be needed, which led to the Universe's most elegant Soulbound management system and also proved to be his downfall.

Relationships

DEATH

Time's relationship with Death was the definition of love/hate. He couldn't stand Death's total lack of respect and was wildly jealous of how easy it was for his older brother to get the attention of the other Gods, but when Death came to Time for help in a way only he could give, there was nothing in the Universe that would've stopped him from accepting. His flippancy of Death's concerns over corruption was driven in large part because it was something even Death was afraid to do, and if Time was the one to nuke Entropy, then maybe he would finally get everything he wanted. It's a shame things didn't work out that way.

NATURE

Nature was really the only one who truly understood Time, or wanted to. He never treated her any better than he treated everyone, but she could strip him bare with a look that made him more vulnerable to his sweet sister. It meant more to him than she knew when she backed his corruption plan, but he wouldn't live long enough to see where that led her, which was probably for the best.

Skills

Among the best builders of Soulbound and able to craft souls as well as Death could, Time's greatest assets were his thoroughness and attention to detail. Like it or not (and for the rest of the Gods, usually not), there wasn't much he wasn't good at.

Major Events

AGE OF THE ELDEST

Death might have been the favorite of the Eldest, but Time wasn't far behind. Regardless, he could feel the difference in how they were treated, and it made him demanding and controlling of the Eldests' time in an effort to keep their attention. It didn't seem to bother the Eldest any, so while it made his siblings resentful, he was still well-loved during this time.

AFTER THE CALL

After the Eldest left for the Heart of the Universe, he found himself shunted aside in favor of Death in just about everything. This enraged him at first, and Death was too busy putting out fires to notice, but he threw himself into creating Soulbound and found that he was really, really good at it. This mellowed him a little, making him a quieter, more insular God wrapped up in his planets, and when Death came to him for help, he was quick to give it.

THE TIMELINE

Time's creation of the Timeline is the single most genius and influential system the Universe had ever seen, bringing order to the chaos in one fell swoop. Death was less amused when Time immediately forced everyone to adhere to it, but not even Death can deny that it made things significantly easier to manage, and he could still operate outside of its influence at will, which surely drove Time to fits and thus made it attractive to Death to do it constantly. Almost every other system for managing the Soulbound depends on the Timeline to function in some way.

The Timeline itself is an elegant beast, simple in design and deeply complex in execution. Events traveled forward in a line, one after another, instead of in a jumble that required Gods to split their minds to be several places at once, and the entire movement of the Universe slowed to a much more manageable crawl. Looking back along the Timeline is a fairly simple operation even for Soulbound, with only one line to examine, but it branches into a veritable forest of options beyond the "current" point along it, making it a real chore to figure out which path is the optimal one. Some Gods are more deft at it than others, though all of them have been known to try, and Death's ability to operate outside of its influence at will makes him less interested in individual branches versus the direction of the whole. He knows this makes it easier for nonsense to slip under his radar, but there's too much to do to babysit the Timeline, and he was never much interested in such fussy work, anyway. If Time had survived, he would've been perfect for it.

CORRUPTION

They say there's a fine line between genius and madness, and Time proved that too by convincing some of the others that corruption could be harnessed and used to erase Entropy from the Universe. Unfortunately, he was dead wrong. When it came to a deadly showdown with Death to stop Time from killing other Gods, Time didn't even recognize his brother anymore. Death's never really gotten over it.

overview

One of the few Gods who wasn't completely humanoid, Nature came out on top in the pile of Gods with comparable power levels following Death and Time's clear superiority. Her planets specialized in non-humanoid Soulbound and the vast majority of them are still going strong without any intervention whatsoever. She's also the builder who put together Nature's Blessing as a boon to her less experienced siblings, much to their relief.

Appearance

Nature was a split between a humanoid upper body and a brilliant, heavily ornamented green mantid below, with glittering rainbow, faceted eyes and trailing fins on her limbs that she used a touch of illusion to make fade to pink at the edges, the first to use the color in that particular shade. Though pure humanoids are generally considered the beauty standard among the Gods, Nature was a strong contender for the most beautiful being in the Universe. Though she wasn't the only God to decorate herself with planets, she was the only one to make those planets into complex, living ecosystems that supported a variety of Soulbound successfully.

Personality

The definition of a beautiful soul, she was kind and considerate to her siblings and able to smooth over disagreements in a much warmer way than Death's icy ultimatums. She made it a point to treat everyone fairly and could always be relied upon to keep secrets secret, even from Death. Her guiding tenet was that all life is sacred and should be properly cared for, even the artificial lives given to those creatures made that support the Soulbound. She was always quick to help her siblings with their builds, making the Gods flock to her for assistance. Her supportive and creative personality made her well-loved, and also killed her.

Relationships

TIME

Despite her agreeable demeanor, even Nature was skeptical she could break through Time's barriers. Nevertheless, she made the effort when no one else would, and when she discovered that all he wanted was to be needed, their relationship grew into something close to friendship. She was easily convinced to try harnessing corruption with him, more because she didn't want him to go into the unknown alone than because she believed it would actually work, and was therefore not quite surprised when it would be the thing that ended her life.

DEATH

Nature loved Death dearly and would make herself available for him at moment's notice when he needed to let off steam about the current state of the Universe. She also was the one who would advise him about the best uses for the Eldest artifacts he found and stored in the Elyr and was the only God who was allowed unfettered access to any of them that she wanted at any time. Her death was a bigger blow to her older brother than he'd like to admit, and he refuses to talk about her now.

Skills

She was a master builder both of planets and physical vessels and could use Eldest artifacts to their fullest effect. Her personality also made her perfect for mediating arguments, which she was always happy to do with gentleness and grace.

Major Events

AGE OF THE ELDEST

Nature's penchant for creation presented itself moments after her creation when she started fiddling with Eldest artifacts to study and refine them. Her parents were always willing to let her help put things together, making her the most knowledgeable about artifacts in general, a skill Death would take shameless advantage of at every opportunity.

AFTER THE CALL

She was as devastated as the rest of them when the Eldest disappeared and struggled in the yawning emptiness that came after, but Death's idea to create Soulbound breathed some life back into her. She was fairly adept at building functional souls, but her real talents lay in physical vessels and planetary environments and she was quietly relieved when Death forbade the rest of the Gods from making souls.

NATURE'S BLESSING

Nature was one of the first to embrace the Timeline's stabilizing structure. While she never had much interest in the future, it wasn't uncommon to find her gaze buried in the past, analyzing planet builds that worked and, more importantly, ones that didn't, and why. She set about building a powerful guide of various successful frameworks as a boon to the less experienced of her siblings, codifying optimal environments and soul vessel builds that would live comfortably on their planets without much, if any, intervention. As she released sections of the knowledge out into the Universe, the overall quality of builds skyrocketed, easing the amount of time other, more experienced Gods spent fixing broken planets and speeding successful Soulbound growth.

CORRUPTION

When Time suggested corruption as the answer to the Gods' Entropy problems, she found the idea just crazy enough to work, and understood Time in a way that none of the others did, making her more inclined to agree with him in the first place. When she realized her mistake and began slipping into madness, she couldn't bear making Death have to go through with destroying her, and she disappeared into the Deepdark to be devoured by Nameless. A whole section of Entropy's horrific physical form is dedicated to displaying twisted versions of the beautiful mantid's body.

overview

Unsurprisingly, Emotion is the most explosive of the Gods, living passionately and to the fullest extent. She's arguably the most mobile as well, as nothing can keep her pinned to one place for long. She doesn't create Soulbound of her own, choosing instead to devote herself to tweaking and perfecting her elaborate personality system. It's a neverending job, as she's very in tune with the needs of the Soulbound, and their overall needs are constantly changing, but she doesn't mind. Emotion spends the most time among the Soulbound, too, both to see the fruits of her efforts and to have as many novel experiences as she can with the unexpectedly amusing creatures.

Appearance

Emotion is a short humanoid with a stout, solid frame. She has warm, dark brown skin with long, auburn hair done up in curls and braids and eyes that swirl red, blue, and violet in dizzying patterns. She once favored wild, colorful outfits that drastically changed her silhouette, but now she dresses only in form-fitting white and shields herself from the rest of the Universe with large wings made out of the spaces between stars. One would be hard-pressed to ever find her wearing anything on her feet.

Personality

Emotion lived life to the fullest, striving (and failing) to live in the moment and forgive past regrets. She's all enthusiasm and dramatics, great fun in small doses and hopelessly overwhelming in large ones. She's a bonafide workaholic, endlessly tweaking and refining the deeply complex personality system she developed before the creation of the Timeline. Exactly the type to take things personally, she finds fault in herself constantly, replaying events and rehearsing what she could've said, could've done, to singlehandedly prevent tragedy. This deep sensitivity has led to her complete withdrawal from the Universe after Time murdered her dearest friend, with the minor changes to the personality system the only sign that she's even still alive.

Relationships

THOUGHT

No one was really sure what Thought was doing for Emotion, but they were grateful he was there to curb some of Emotion's wildness. For her part, she loved him wholly, his presence a constant comfort when she felt the worst about herself. Nobody understood the surprising depth in the God, rarely seen but still there beneath the lackadaisical surface, but Emotion knew how beautiful his soul was, and knew exactly what the Universe lost the day he died.

DEATH

Emotion and Death had a contentious relationship, often at odds with each other because he just didn't understand what she was trying to do. They did their best to stay away from each other, and when they were together, a roaring fight heard across the Universe was sure to ensue. After Thought died, however, Death is the only one she'll tolerate in her presence largely because she can't stop him from inflicting himself on her. Death isn't sure if Emotion even knows he's there, as she's completely thrown into her work and nonresponsive whenever he checks in on her, but that doesn't stop him from letting her know that they all still love her and are waiting for her to come home.

Skills

Emotion is deeply in tune with the Soulbound across the Universe and uses the knowledge to endlessly refine and change her system. She's also fairly adept at reading and influencing the futures along the Timeline, but she sees little point in doing it anymore.

Major Events

AGE OF THE ELDEST

When the Eldest inhabited the Universe, Emotion quickly became the most well understood of the Gods due to her inability to hide one single thing about herself, and thus was deeply loved and enjoyed. She was well-traveled even then, coaxing her creator to take her on field trips across the Universe to see beautiful things, a desire that was always indulged.

AFTER THE CALL

Her personality didn't change one bit after the Eldests' departure, with her continuing on as though they'd never left with even more vigor, but a few of the elder siblings know that of all of them, their abandonment unquestionably cut Emotion the deepest. She all but hurled herself into helping the Soulbound live to try and ease the ache of the loss, a tactic Death recognized as his own favorite coping mechanism. Her wildness brought excitement with her wherever she went, when it didn't cause epic fights.

PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT

Emotion's expansive personality system was the first Soulbound management system to be developed by the Gods. Despite her system's existence before its creation, she was right behind Nature in accepting the influence of the Timeline, as it suddenly made her personality system a lot more elegant, and was quick to overhaul it to work beautifully within the Timeline's strict restraints. Her love of the stars grew from the Timeline's reliance on them and the countless beautiful ones she'd seen during her extensive travels, so she worked them into her personality system as well, with the stars being able to somewhat predict personalities and quirks if one knew how to read them. She's a master manipulator, always knowing exactly what to say to get what she wants, but she doesn't take advantage of it. Mostly.

THOUGHT'S DEMISE

When Time went mad from corruption, Emotion found herself his first target. She fled from him, but when he inevitably cornered her, it would be her stalwart companion, Thought, who put himself squarely between the two of them and took the hit meant for his sister. There was no chance of survival, and she's not sure if she's sorry that Death arrived in time to save her from the same fate. It's well understood that the Light Lock incident and the following loss of Thought all but broke the sensitive God, so her siblings leave her to her stars and her Soulbound, hoping the brilliant sun of her personality will shine on their lives again someday.

overview

Though the Gods don't need sleep and generally don't understand what it is, Energy was the first to slow down enough to try it and grew rather fond of it as a way to regain some mental balance. He discovered that Gods can, in fact, dream, and he used his as a starting point for his whimsical planets. His "system" isn't so much a system as close observations of the Universe around him applied to Soulbound, and his actual power level isn't much to write home about, but he was so instrumental in true Soulbound longevity that it earned him a place in the Gods' inner circle, anyway.

Appearance

The Gods have no idea what Energy actually looks like anymore due to his extensive use of illusion and magic to maintain a humanoid shape. Most of them suspect he's non-humanoid given his lack of sheer power that the elder siblings boast, but like many of the Gods, he's susceptible to vanity. That said, he's quick to push the envelope of what "humanoid" entails. He's small and lithe, exuding a certain air of fragility, and his lower body is always concealed in thick charcoal-black clouds that gather around his hips. His angled eyes are a dreamy swirl of pastels, and black, shifting patterns ripple across his alabaster skin. Black, swept back hair with a white stripe down one side and draping silver jewelry completes his chosen look. Don't let it be said that he couldn't be picked out in a crowd.

Personality

Energy is a bit of an eccentric wallflower, with a penchant for wild ideas that always seemed to work out better than they should. He stays well away from participating in sibling arguments, fully aware that Death only comes to him for his sharp and objective mind and calm demeanor instead of any particular power and is unwilling to upset that by being a pain in the ass. That said, it's not uncommon to find him skirting the edges of fights to learn things about the other Gods that they don't even know about themselves. He knows better than to mediate; he's not Nature, after all.

Relationships

DEATH

Energy lives a lonely life given his thorough success in ostracizing himself from his siblings with the capitalization of consumption as a concept for the Soulbound. He doesn't think it really bothers him, though, and so spends his days with only the company of his eldest brother to disrupt the quiet productivity of wrangling planets into self-sufficiency. Truthfully, the commotion that Death always brings with him is more than enough excitement for the insular God.

Skills

Energy's greatest asset is his ability to take his broad expanse of knowledge and connect the dots in clever ways to achieve his goals. When he's not tweaking his planets, he can be found wandering the Universe to learn more to add to his sharp mental library.

Major Events

AGE OF THE ELDEST

If Energy is being honest with himself, he doesn't really remember much from this time, and his dreams are unreliable at best. He knows he was loved, as they all were, but the only Eldest he can recall with any clarity is his creator, from whom Energy inherited his love of wandering the Universe to see what could be seen and know what could be known.

AFTER THE CALL

Energy was more quietly devastated by the abandonment than a good portion of his siblings and leaped to be busy with something other than crushing longing when Death put forth the Soulbound idea. Though he was never a deft hand with soul creation and his planets were held up with a lot of cleverly manipulated magic rather than any particular natural environmental balance, his Soulbound still managed to be some of the longest-lived of any of his siblings.

THE LIGHT LOCK

As one of the frailer Gods, he was kept well away from the bulk of the fighting by those who were better suited for it. Binding Entropy with the Light Lock scarred all the Gods in irreversible ways, but Energy was so quick to bounce back that the others wonder if he ever felt anything at all about it. They don't know about his dreams.

ASTUTE OBSERVATIONS

Following the Light Lock battle and wrestling the Deepdark under the influence of the Timeline, Death began to search in earnest for ways to extend the life cycles of Soulbound across the board to ease the load of soul creation. It didn't take him long to find Energy in one of the smaller magic veins fiddling with life forces, and Energy was quick to offer what he'd discovered since the Call. First, he put forth the practice of sleeping as a "recharging" activity that kept their life energies flickering longer. It was so effective that Death made it a requirement for all Soulbound vessels to have some sort of rest period. Thought was gone from the Universe by this point, so Energy was the one to dig into Thought's self-awareness system and add dreaming as an option for Soulbound, and many Gods were quite happy to link dreams to magic and the Timeline to make them more than drifting ideas in sleeping minds. Energy likes to believe that Thought would've approved of the addition.

Less popular was when Energy also floated the idea of consumption of other living things to recharge life energy, a concept pulled directly from Entropy and the others knew it. However, it proved even more effective than the rest period, so amidst uproar, Death required that, too. It was this contentious addition that really earned Energy's place as one of Death's more reliable siblings, and Death has been known to use Energy as a sounding board for particularly irritating problems that don't seem to have any solutions at all, let alone elegant ones. Energy proves time and again that his cleverness and objectivity make him worth his weight in stardust.

overview

If we're being honest, Thought was a bit of a space cadet and barely productive. He seemed to drift along the tides of life with a monumental lack of concern for anything around him, and nobody ever accused him of being the cleverest of the Gods. That said, his supremely laid-back nature and kind heart made him a perfect counterpart to Emotion's explosive personality, and the two were rarely seen apart.

Appearance

Thought was a big god, a powerfully built humanoid with four arms rather than two. However, his violet eyes were gentle, almost intimate, and his long black hair rippled around him like a cloak in stark contrast with his pale skin. His thin, dark clothes did little to diminish his sheer physical presence.

Personality

Lackadaisical and adrift, he spent the majority of his time following Emotion around the Universe and acting as a dubious sounding board to her idea a minute. He seemed to have little desire or drive to do much of anything else, something his siblings gave him much grief over, but no one could deny the usefulness of his singular ability to curb Emotion's tantrums before they got really out of hand. His patience was boundless, though whether it was because he was actually patient or just not listening, no one could say.

Relationships

EMOTION

It was clear to anyone who saw him that Thought deeply loved his sister, one of the few things that was clear at all about the God. They had a simple, uncomplicated relationship and spent every moment together traveling the Universe so Emotion could keep tweaking and refining her complicated system. She was irreparably damaged with his loss.

Skills

Thought's major and extremely appreciated skill was wrangling Emotion's worst outbursts, something that eclipsed even his shockingly brilliant self-awareness system.

Major Events

AGE OF THE ELDEST

If Thought was built to be commanding, it didn't work. He was just as lazy as he is now, but his creator Eldest didn't seem to much mind and let Thought trail them much as he did with Emotion later in life. None of the Gods remember him displaying much beyond this lost lamb behavior.

AFTER THE CALL

He latched onto Emotion not long after the Call, and the others suspect it was Emotion's larger-than-life personality that drew the quiet God. If he was busy with her antics, then he was too busy to think about the longing they all felt so acutely. He refrained from making Soulbound of his own, content to simply drift with Emotion through the Universe.

SPARK OF LIFE

It shocked everyone when it was Thought working with Emotion that gave the Soulbound their first flickers of life, leading many to wonder just how much Emotion put into Thought's system herself, but Thought demonstrated such an understanding of simply experiencing the world around him that it was clear he came up with the self-awareness system all on his own. Surprising everyone again when he had the sheer power to back it up, he elevated himself to "major" status with this single stroke of genius, though he would never touch the system again after it was implemented. When Energy added to the system later, he was shocked to find it simply built but deeply effective and easily expanded.

TIME'S MADNESS

Unfortunately, his magical prowess wasn't enough to slow down Time when he lost his mind to corruption. He cornered Emotion and Thought at the beginning of his rampage, and Thought put himself between his sister and the mad God. Death didn't make it before Thought was slain, and Emotion was never the same again.

overview

appearance

personality

relationships

skills

major events

overview

appearance

personality

relationships

skills

major events

overview

appearance

personality

relationships

skills

major events

overview

appearance

personality

relationships

skills

major events

overview

appearance

personality

relationships

skills

major events