Nightcrawler · 3:30pm Nov 4th, 2023
The current leader of the Cult of Endless Decay, Nightcrawler is an atrocity (the Chaos equivalent to an ascendant) created by D’compose in the waning days of the Skellweb Crisis. With his master's capture and Black Thorn’s death, Nightcrawler became the de facto leader of the cult. Even now, he works against Solaria in an effort to both free his master, and defeat the hated phoenix-born.
Origin:
When the Skellweb crisis began, D’compose was taken by surprise by the phoenix-born, as ascension had not existed in the time of the Chaos War. Initially, he had dismissed them as nothing more than a nuisance. But as the war raged, he became increasingly frustrated by the phoenix-born and their ability to best his forces.
In an effort to counter the phoenix-born, he and Black Thorn began to experiment with creating atrocities.
Their first and only successful creation was Nightcrawler.
When creating Nighcrawler, D’compose used the carefully selected corpses of many exceptionally powerful individuals, including sun-gazers, kirintal, plumed serpents and even dragons.
Nightcrawler’s introduction to the war escalated the conflict to a new level. With the threat of more such atrocities looming, Celestia and the phoenix-born enacted their desperate gamble to capture D’compose and the rest of the Cult’s leadership. Though successful in their efforts, Nightcrawler remained in play.
Appearance:
Nighcrawler resembles a skeleton in most respects, and is often mistaken for a common dread at first. However, it quickly becomes obvious that he is something far more fearsome. The most striking feature that separates him from his lesser undead cousins is his left arm, which resembles a pair of long serpent tails. His legs are unguligrade like a kirintal stag, his torso and right arm is thick-boned and sturdy like that of an earth weaver and end in the taloned skeletal hand of a hatchling linnorm, while his head has the telltale indentation where a soul-gem would have rested.
Nightcrawler is rarely seen without a full suit of custom, enchanted plate armor built for his unique frame. Like his phoenix-born counterparts, he has a cache of Chaos-enchanted weapons that he brings into battle. While he hasn’t managed to create anything on the level of an amp, he continues to experiment and innovate in an effort to duplicate the process.
Personality:
Were one to try to apply mortal concepts of mentality to Nightcrawler, he would be best described as a psychopath. The creature also possesses an enormous ego, seeing himself as superior to everything around him, save for his master D’compose. He is completely amoral, having no regard for any other being, and in fact hates the living in general. Members of the Cult of Endless Decay are not excluded from this utter disdain for life, but he maintains a facade of politeness and civility around them to ensure their loyalty.
Nightcrawler revels in destruction and death, taking enormous pleasure in the act of killing and torture. Sadistic in the extreme, many of his hexes are meant to inflict as much pain and fear as possible before killing the target.
Nightcrawler has a deep hatred of the phoenix-born, and of Roseluck and Steel Sentry in particular. His animosity towards Steel is due to his inability to ever decisively best the general, despite being the stronger of the two. The fact that Steel has killed him so many times grates Nighcrawler’s ego to no end. Conversely, Roseluck represents everything he hates: kindness, love, compassion and life. While his hate of Steel comes from a bruising of his massive ego, Roseluck stands in defiance of his very being.
Powers:
In combat, Nightcrawlwer is a frightening and deadly foe. Aside from his physical attacks, as an undead he is immune to fatigue, poison and other maladies of the living. Something he takes advantage of at every opportunity.
Nightcrawler’s most well documented and frustrating power is his regenerative immortality. Should he be “killed” in battle, he will regenerate himself depending on the state of his current body. Should his vessel remain relatively intact, he can restore himself in minutes. The more damage to his current vessel, the longer it takes to recover. If his body is completely destroyed, he cannot regenerate on his own, and must inhibit a new corpse. Inhabiting a corpse takes close to a decade, during which he slowly transforms the body into a duplicate of his original.
As an atrocity, Nightcrawler has access to powerful Chaos based magic. Because of the nature of his creation, he is capable of wielding twisted Chaos variants of both flame and shadow magic. When creating him, D’compose chose the corpses of exceptionally powerful individuals, giving his creation a naturally large and pure flame, as well as enormous life well to draw from. While he has full access to the breadth of the flame's power aside from controlling light, Nightcrawler's shadow-magic is entirely focused on necromancy and shadow manipulation, leaving him without access to the illusion or mind-controling aspects of the shadow. He is also a master Chaos-alchemist, allowing him to take natural substances and twist them into new, Chaos-enhanced versions of themselves.
Finally, Nightcrawler can use a lesser version of his master’s signature skeletonize ability. Unlike D’compose, Nightcrawler is only capable of converting corpses into undead, and cannot use this power on the living. Where he excels is in reanimation, as he is capable of reconstructing fallen undead creatures and returning them to unlife. Battles against Nightcrawler are terrifying affairs where he sends waves of dreads at his foes, only to restore them once they are cut down.
Weaknesses:
Like all of D’compose’s creations, Nightcrawler is vulnerable to sunlight. Unlike lesser undead, the sun does not destroy him, instead negating his ability to wield his magic and disorienting him. Similarly, strong infusions of directed life energy, such as Roseluck’s life-burn weaponry, can harm him.
As a skeleton, Nightcrawler is particularly susceptible to impact damage, which can easily shatter his body. Taking advantage of this weakness can be difficult, as his armor protects him against most concussive attacks. He is also vulnerable to corrosive and fire based attacks, which damage him in ways he cannot regenerate.
Finally, while exceptionally intelligent, Nighcrawler’s poor impulse control makes him predictable, and his massive ego often leads him to underestimate his foes. When he can keep his ego in check, he is a frighteningly dangerous opponent. But should he let his ego get out of control, he can be lured into traps. It is this quality that Steel Sentry has used most often to beat Nightcrawler.
(Edit: additional spoiler information after I thought about it a bit)
Final death:
The only way to permanently kill Nightcrawler is to bind his spirit to its current body. This would require a custom hex from a master necromancer. Once bound, Nightcrawler's body must be completely incinerated with true fire. Should the true fire consume every part of him while his spirit is bound, he will be permanently destroyed.
It's cool, but the name Nightcrawler, makes me think about the Marvel's teleporting blue mutant.
5753672
Yea. Though, to be fair, Nightcrawler is an existing character from Inhumanoids, the same series that D'compose comes from.
Fascinating to see what the heights (or depths) of Chaos magic are capable of. I get the feeling that if this instance of Discord ever makes himself known, it'll take a lot more than Fluttershy to get him to mellow out. Assuming such a thing is even remotely in the realm of possibility...
5753679
Chaos is no joke. And, remember, Nightcrawlwer was the prototype. Given time, D'compose could have created even stronger atrocities as he perfected the process, or made more like Nightcrawler with less time and effort.
As for this version of Discord mellowing out, it couldn't happen. Unlike the prime version of Discord, Splintered Sky's version is a force of nature. While he's intelligent on a level that mortals cannot comprehend, his entire existence is focused entirely on the disruption of order and harmony. Every aspect of his being is dedicated to it, just as his brother Grogar's entire existence is dedicated to death and entropy. Neither of them can be reasoned with, because they exist entirely for their purpose of eradicating the tumor of Harmony and her creation.
Well... shit. Even holy fire and light can't keep him down permanently. That sucks. Smart of D'Compose to not tie him to only a single body and that he can regenerate. The stuff of nightmares for anyone that you can only temporarily win. Even Steel, who clearly enjoys combat, would get tired and irritated of having to always have to face down such a creature again and again after they have slayed countless others. The only way to win would be to trap Nightcrawler's "Soul" or being in a light prison so that it could not regenerate.
5753693
As you can imagine, Steel hates Nightcrawler just about as much as Nightcrawler hates him. Steel dedicates a considerable amount of time figuring out new ways to find and kill Nightcrawler as soon as he re-emerges, because as you can imagine, leaving him on the loose is a dangerous proposition. If anything, putting him back into his regenerative phase is one of the few times Roseluck and Steel will willingly cooperate for any length of time.
So... The Kanohi Ignika would be VERY effective against it.
5753716
I have no idea what that is. Without knowing exactly how whatever it is you mentioned works, I can't really say.
5753726
It's the Mask of Life from Bionicle.
5753734
Then I guess it depends on what it's capable of. I suspect it would be effective against him if it could do something like life-burning. The question is are the beings in Bionicle "alive" in a biological sense. Because if what "life" means for them is different from biological life, then that could alter how the mask's power interacts with him.
5753741
The Mask of Life effects those that are both fully organic and biomechanical.