D'compose - Lord of Unlife · 4:37pm Sep 2nd, 2021
Between working on the next chapter and my thesis, I needed a bit of a brain break, so I decided to put pecil to paper and come up with Splintered Sky's version of D'compose.
One of Grogar the Death Bringer's abominations, D'compose was defeated by Harmony and her children in the Chaos War. Because the creature couldn't be destroyed, only contained, it was sealed in magical amber and buried in the hope that it would remain sealed forever. There it remained for countless eons, until after the Splintering, where it was uncovered by a disenfranchised earth-weaver by the name of Black Thorn. Releasing the creature, Black Thorn formed a cult around the abomination, drawing in the outcasts, poor and disillusioned of Solaria to worship at the feet of the Lord of Unlife.
So began the Skellweb Crisis.
The conflict lasted for a decade, until the Phoenix-born, led by General Steel Sentry, lured D'compose into a trap, where Queen Celestia re-sealed the creature in it's amber prison. Not wishing to risk it getting lose again, the queen interred it under Mt. Liakeed in a special chamber that would continuously bathe the abomination in sunlight, robbing it of its power and leaving it unable to break free again.
Powers/Abilities
- Skeletonize - D'compose can transform any living or dead creature into an undead, skeletal monstrosity. Undead created in this way are obedient slaves to its will. Normally D'compose does this with a touch, but it can also gather its power to unleash it in waves or bursts. It is also able to create stronger creatures by investing more of its power into their creation. Immortals are immune.
- Breath of Decay - D'compose can breath out a noxious cloud of black vapors, causing any living thing within to wither and die as their life energy is snuffed out. Ground contaminated by this ability can take centuries to be able to support life again. Living creatures killed by this breath rise as skeletal monstrosities under D'compose's control.
- Noxious ichor - D'compose's blood is highly toxic to living things. Contact with the blood acts as a vicious poison, causing rapid necrosis from just a touch. Creatures slain by the poison rise as skeletal monstrosities under D'compose's control.
- Chaos necromancer - D'compose is a master necromancer, and can use all manner of magic related to undeath, death and decay. Unlike Harmony based necromancy, his Chaos necromancy has no cost to him, and can break most of the rules of natural death magic.
- Death denied - As one of Grogar's creations, D'compose cannot be permanently destroyed. Even if it is somehow subdued or dismembered, it will slowly reconstruct itself and rise again.
- Mouthed tendrils - the structures emerging from D'compose's abdomen that look like its entrails are actually mouthed tendrils that the creature can use to attack prey that draws too close, or spew its noxious blood.
Weaknesses
- Whiteburn - Exposure to sunlight is agonizing to D'compose, and robs it of much of its power. So long as it is bathed in sunlight, it cannot use any of its magic or powers, and is incapacitated with pain. However, it cannot be killed by whiteburn, only disabled. Its undead minions are not so resilient, becoming weakened if briefly touched by sunlight and destroyed if exposed to more than a minute of it.
- Life energy vulnerability - As a creature that relies on anti-life energy to exist, directed life energy is dangerous to D'compose, canceling out portions of its own power. Like whiteburn, it cannot permanently destroy the abomination, only contain it. Its creations are not so lucky, and can be destroyed by exposure to magically directed life energy.
Notes
- D'compose's head is based on a gorgonopsid, a early form of predatory therapsid.
- D'compose's cowl and cape are not clothing, but actually part of its body.
- The creature is roughly the same height as Queen Celestia, but much more massive due to its bulk.
So...I know and remember who Sombra is, and Celestia and so on...but, who is Grogar in your world. It just makes me think about what could be so powerful as to risk harm against a immortal? Or make such a lasting creation?
5576750
Grogar the Deathbringer is one of the Avatars of Chaos, entities manifested by the primal Chaos as a means to destroy Harmony and her creation. He created several abominations (creatures equal in strength to the siblings, one of which was D'compose) to aid in his and Discord's war against the Empress.
He was mentioned in Ch 1, and is the one responsible with introducing death to Nitor.
5576755
Oh! Ya...I forgot about him. Now I remember.
Nasty piece of work. At first wondered why not just kept him bathed in light 24/7 (or whatever week/day last in Nitor) but then I read he's much more massive than Celestia. It must be hard to create spells/contraption to do that.
So Harmony can use Necromancy. Interesting . Nice change of pace as it's ralery associated with the possitive spectrum.
5576757
So, death was a new concept back then?
5576760
There's a bit to unpack there.
images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/80eccd0c-9c20-4b7a-89dc-b75efbf68051/deqami2-0f7e510e-3686-41b4-8b62-59b77c08b9ca.png?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7InBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcLzgwZWNjZDBjLTljMjAtNGI3YS04OWRjLWI3NWVmYmY2ODA1MVwvZGVxYW1pMi0wZjdlNTEwZS0zNjg2LTQxYjQtOGI2Mi01OWI3N2MwOGI5Y2EucG5nIn1dXSwiYXVkIjpbInVybjpzZXJ2aWNlOmZpbGUuZG93bmxvYWQiXX0.BvMPFgedg-p2vedGcovX01s5ZevjvpH4Qz_mdoe8180
D'compose and Queen Celestia are both about 20m tall, but when looking at their proportions, D'compose is clearly more muscular and bulkier. And, unlike the queen, it was created by Grogar to fight and kill. With as much power as the queen has, she's not a physical match for D'compose, even if its magic is held at bay by whiteburn.
As for keeping it exposed to light constantly, the only kind of light that hurts it is true sunlight. Magically generating light is pretty simple. Generating something with the properties of true sunlight is much harder and more complex. During the Skellweb Crisis, D'compose would only attack at night, and would retreat underground when the sun was going to rise. That's why they had to trap it in amber again, then have the queen herself construct the chamber and imbue it with the power to create sunlight. Nobody else had the power to do something like that.
Indeed. Necromancy is simply magic that deals with death, the dead, and life energy. Harmonious necromancy is practiced by the shadow-stalkers, and focuses more on recalling echos of memory from the bodies of the dead, manipulating life-energy, and destroying the undead. However, it can't be used to create undead creatures. That's a strictly Chaos based power.
Yes. Until the Chaos War, death didn't exist on Nitor. But, neither did birth. Only the Empress could create new life. When the Chaos War broke out, death was brought to Nitor. In response, Harmony gave her creations the ability to make more of themselves through birth, so that they wouldn't be wiped out by death. It's why ancients like Lumina are able to produce children without a mate.
Fascinating stuff. Not at all what I thought D'compose would be, but still a very neat concept.
5576837
Figured I'd take good ol' classical D'compose, and crank the eldritch-abomination dial up a few tics. As much as I liked him in the original Inhumanoids, I didn't think he'd be the same kind of threat in Splintered Sky thanks to it being a world with so much more magic available to counter him. Hence the dialing him up.
Well... that's horrifying.
And at the same time so intriguing. Such a wonderful and complex world you have built. And that drawing is good too.
5576929
Thank you.
Mind, while Nitor's D'compose is far more horrific than it's inspiration, the original is still pretty nightmarish. If you've never seen Inhumanoids, we regularly got treated to things like this whenever ol' skullhead was on the scene:
(I want to remind you that this was a kids show)
Also, recall that I mentioned that Roseluck created Thorn and Phlume's Kiss (her two combat based amps) to fight D'compose during the Skellweb Crisis. This is why that was necessary.