♆ DEMONIC CLASS; max's class focus within the magical planes, his "line" being his specialized abilities. "The demonic class controls magic that affects those that cannot be seen, and are tied to destructive spirits."
→ POSSESSION (LINE) | To quote Danzy (creator of the whole B&M OC world), "when the demon/spirit/angel/etc is the one in control of the physical body. host awareness can vary, from full possessions to partial possessions, but generally speaking the host is not the one running the show."
→ VESSELAGE (LINE) | Like possession, except Max is the one in control. He takes on demonic spirits as 'passengers'. They hang out in his body, he uses their powers as he likes. So long as he's still the one in control, he isn't truly 'possessed'. Vesseling also allows him to forcibly yank a spirit/monster out of someone else, if he so pleases. Danzy's quote on it: "it's when the host has control of its hitchhikers; the demon, in this case, is contained inside the physical body, and its powers are temporarily wielded by the vessel. this can be dangerous though, because it risks overpowering the physical body and damaging it from the inside!"
→ BESERKER (LINE) | Max basically tap dances all over the line of complete possession. He has a wide range of how fully he can absorb a spirit before losing control of the connection, and that allows him to 'beserk'. He can do absurd amounts of damage, and take absurd amounts of damage physically, without being deterred. Like WoW abilities that give you like 50% more damage when you're below 20% health. As a teenager in school, this was very difficult for him to control, but in the past several years he's A, gained more experience and better control, B, went on this weird as spirit journey with an old ass shaman he pissed off on accident, and C, was given a couple bracelets by James that help him regain control of himself and D, was given a lot of tattoos to help regulate and control this. The general rule is this - the longer he's in his berserker trance, the harder it is to pull out of it, and the more he starts to physically shift into the thing that he's channeling. In BCR this was a serious, serious issue. At present, he's worked a lot on this and mastered it to the point of quick shifts from completely non-vesseling to full throttle beserking, eyes glowing all firey, horns sticking out of hair, skin on fire, that sort of thing. And then very quickly snapping back to normal. It still leaves burns on his skin that gradually heal (over a faster period of time, due to ability directly below this one), but yeah, it's a good time. And works really well for scaring thieves and scavengers in tombs and temples and shit off without having to actually fight them. Ain't nobody want to be hanging around after they see Max go full demon on them. However, there is occasion that he vessels something too strong for him, while Max is not in tip-top enough mental or emotional state, and holds on to it too long in his Berserker mode, and has difficulty shifting back to himself. He informs everyone who fights or adventures with him that, in the case this happens, then A, run and B, call Dani and Marco to come beat the crap out of him, until he can shift back again. It's still not a perfect ability, but it's much easier to handle than it once was.
→ HEALING/DURABILITY | Max vessels p damn hard due to Berserker things, as well as the fact that vesseling is just naturally hard on the physical form. While he is naturally more durable by nature of how his magic has adapted to how it's been used, Max now has a couple different magic tattoos (see 5 and 8) that offer some wards from damage, and some assistance in healing. He's sure as hell not Wolverine or anything, but if some crazy woman backs into him with her Jeep, he'll be okay.
→ HELLFIRE | What it sounds like. Fire. Like, extra bad fire. Soul burning fire. Like lightsaber level ouchies or some shit. Also comes in Raining From The Sky Like The Literal End Of Days flavor. It's pretty gr8.
→ FIREPROOF | All little demonic hellboys are fireproof, especially the ones who cast hellfire specifically and do a lot of possession/vesselage stuff. Mostly, at least. Well, normal fire isn't going to do much to them.
→ DEMONIESE/DEMON RADIO | Max is fluent in German, English, Latin and Hellspawn (Angungol, formally). Also hears a fairly regular mental stream of demon chatter going on in his head.
→ VOID WALKING | This one time Max woke up a really old shaman, who slapped him into a spirit journey, which, because he was less spectral and more demonic plane, ended up being a month long dance through the demonic plane, while gross nightmare fuel things hissed in his ear and talked about skinning him alive and wear him like a meat bag 8D It was p great. But it helped his transitioning as far as vesseling and mainly berserking goes a lot. Due to what happened to him as a child in the Reed compound, Max's mind had sort of always been half forcibly cracked open to the demonic plane, in an incomplete sort of way that just made him constantly vulnerable. Gaining the ability to actually phase into this plane of spiritual existence, walk around in it, and sort of almost be another one of the spirits gave him a means to more cohesively slip in and out of this. This also allows him to see the reality around him from the more magical, spiritual side - able to feel what things pulse with magic, what kind of magic it is, where it goes, where it came from, how old it is, possibly even a signature of who put it there. It lets him reverse-possess as well, jumping into spirits and pulling them apart to look at all the experiences and memories held in however long that spirit has existed for, and the places it has been. It makes tomb raiding and learning the history of a place very easy for him. Also, finding booby traps. You know how them ancient magic bros loved their booby traps, we've all seen Indiana Jones, we know how this goes. While phasing into the demonic plane is generally a mental more than physical thing, with enough effort and energy, Max can swap himself completely into it, and go poof from the world for a time. This little trick is also hella dangerous, because every demony thing close to him will immediately know he's physically there, and be all up on him. Since it's a spiritual plane, he relies more on his natural power to keep himself safe, but yeah. That's a bitch, and it's not a fun place to be, but can be very useful. However, his mind is still cracked open to all things demonic, so, on a day to day basis, Max will see gross demonic things just hanging out on the sidewalk, or hear them screeching in his ear, etc.
→ CORRUPTION | A gradual sickness that manifests over the span of either a few seconds or minutes or hours or days (generally not longer than that), that is put into a monster (or person haaaa) like a seed of compact demonic energy/chaotic ouchy nonsense, that blossoms and grows like an infection. It can either grow into physical sickness, killing off and shutting down organs, filling up your veins with nasty black tar type substances, make you feel like molten lava is spreading around right under your skin (because it is), or have a more mentally damaging side of it, gradually cracking a person or beast's mind open to the fucking horrors of the demonic plane :'33333 and driving you gd batshit. And turning you into a demon/monster magnet. It's a nasty spell, u don't want this shit. At the end of it, either you go totally nuts, or your insides melt, or, on some very special occasions, you explode 8D So, basically, if you pissed Max off, and he gives you a pseudo-friendly slap in the chest before he leaves, pls go see a priest immediately, or your insides and/or mind is not going to be having a good time. He can, however, mostly control the range of horrible he inflects from just 'i'm going to make you want to die for a day' to 'i'm going to make you legitimately melt from the inside out'. The latter he will generally not use on people. ............Much. :|
→ MAGIC BATTERY | less an ability, more just something Max is good for. Because he has such a high generation of magical energy at any given time (largely due to what was done to him as a kid at the Reed compound, his magical nature is a bit broken), he ends up with a lot of excess that he burns off. It's a large part of why he's so active and why so many of his spells are such high cost, big output things, and end up difficult to control or narrow down (also why he gets so many spellwork tattoos, to help with control and precision). This makes him kind of a powerhouse, and thus, if he's tethered by another magic user (a very, very unfun experience, that is very, very dangerous to detangle from), he can be a very effective magic battery and spell booster. However, it's at great risk to Max, as well as something that's deeply traumatizing to him, because of what the Reed cult had planned to do with him (it's a recurring theme in his nightmares). It's something that would only happen when things are absolutely dire, and when it's done by someone he has a lot of trust in.
AGE 28+:
→ DEMONIC FORGING | With James' help, Max reconstructed a forge hammer used by and ancient Nordic runic forgemaster responsible for the creation of many of the powerful magical relics Max had spent about a decade uncovering, retrieving or hiding better than they were previously hidden. They constructed a forge out of the enchanted skull of a dragon, so that it can withstand holding Hellfire in it, and Max develops a new technique to siphon demonic spirits into items - things used as magical totems or weapons. Some of them sort of a little like "I cant be with you all the time to use my demonic destructiony crap to protect you, so pls take this with u, it will fuck things up in my place". He can also put another plane's magic into a weapon, and use the demonic spirit more as a power source, if someone prefers, but that witch would have to be present during the forging of the weapon. Which is sort of a nightmare fuel kind of process to be around. It's gross. The only tool he needs for it is the forgemaster's hammer, as Max doesn't actually shape the weapons with the metalworking tools - the magic and the spirit going into the weapon or item shapes it, often ending up looking like this or this or this. The only other thing required is an enchanted metal, and a forge that can hold Hellfire without melting. Technically, he could ask a live dragon to just open their mouth and let him forge a weapon inside, but all the dragons from Max's world would have just eaten him on sight. Thus, dead one. Sorry, dragon-friend :(
AGE 34+:
→ REAVE | Max takes hold of a demon, monster or even human, and both physically and spiritually flings them into the chaos of the Hellside Outer Ring, to be shredded down to their particle make up by the elements. He can also use this to pull a friend into the place he goes to for him Void Walking ability, where he more just hides in the edges of the Inner and Outer rings. It's a dangerous place there, so he can't really leave anyone there or they'll either be snatched up by wandering malevolent spirits, or sucked out into the chaotic void of the Outer Ring. In a game, this would operate more as just "feeding my enemies to the void between worlds" or "hiding right at the edges of being here and being not here". Max would not be able to actually go anywhere, just hide for a little bit.
AGE 40+:
IDEFK
AGE 50:
IDEFK, BUTTS and looking hot for 300 years or something
Also, Max fucking sucks at any kind of scrying or divination, and his summoning skills are eh. Typically, he doesn't summon unless there's a specific demon he wants a specific power to steal from, or to talk to. Given he's such a powerhouse/walking tank, he really doesn't need the rest of the stuff/it would be really OP for me to give him anything else. So, he is precious boom boom explosion baby. He has other boos to do the most meticulous things for him.
POWERS, PART 1 - DEMONIC PLANE
max's class focus within the magical planes, his "line" being his specialized abilities. "The demonic class controls magic that affects those that cannot be seen, and are tied to destructive spirits."
→ POSSESSION (LINE) | To quote Danzy (creator of the whole B&M OC world), "when the demon/spirit/angel/etc is the one in control of the physical body. host awareness can vary, from full possessions to partial possessions, but generally speaking the host is not the one running the show."
→ VESSELAGE (LINE) | Like possession, except Max is the one in control. He takes on demonic spirits as 'passengers'. They hang out in his body, he uses their powers as he likes. So long as he's still the one in control, he isn't truly 'possessed'. Vesseling also allows him to forcibly yank a spirit/monster out of someone else, if he so pleases. Danzy's quote on it: "it's when the host has control of its hitchhikers; the demon, in this case, is contained inside the physical body, and its powers are temporarily wielded by the vessel. this can be dangerous though, because it risks overpowering the physical body and damaging it from the inside!"
→ BESERKER (LINE) | Max basically tap dances all over the line of complete possession. He has a wide range of how fully he can absorb a spirit before losing control of the connection, and that allows him to 'beserk'. He can do absurd amounts of damage, and take absurd amounts of damage physically, without being deterred. Like WoW abilities that give you like 50% more damage when you're below 20% health. As a teenager in school, this was very difficult for him to control, but in the past several years he's A, gained more experience and better control, B, went on this weird as spirit journey with an old ass shaman he pissed off on accident, and C, was given a couple bracelets by James that help him regain control of himself and D, was given a lot of tattoos to help regulate and control this. The general rule is this - the longer he's in his berserker trance, the harder it is to pull out of it, and the more he starts to physically shift into the thing that he's channeling. In BCR this was a serious, serious issue. At present, he's worked a lot on this and mastered it to the point of quick shifts from completely non-vesseling to full throttle beserking, eyes glowing all firey, horns sticking out of hair, skin on fire, that sort of thing. And then very quickly snapping back to normal. It still leaves burns on his skin that gradually heal (over a faster period of time, due to ability directly below this one), but yeah, it's a good time. And works really well for scaring thieves and scavengers in tombs and temples and shit off without having to actually fight them. Ain't nobody want to be hanging around after they see Max go full demon on them. However, there is occasion that he vessels something too strong for him, while Max is not in tip-top enough mental or emotional state, and holds on to it too long in his Berserker mode, and has difficulty shifting back to himself. He informs everyone who fights or adventures with him that, in the case this happens, then A, run and B, call Dani and Marco to come beat the crap out of him, until he can shift back again. It's still not a perfect ability, but it's much easier to handle than it once was.
→ HEALING/DURABILITY | Max vessels p damn hard due to Berserker things, as well as the fact that vesseling is just naturally hard on the physical form. While he is naturally more durable by nature of how his magic has adapted to how it's been used, Max now has a couple different magic tattoos (see 5 and 8) that offer some wards from damage, and some assistance in healing. He's sure as hell not Wolverine or anything, but if some crazy woman backs into him with her Jeep, he'll be okay.
→ HELLFIRE | What it sounds like. Fire. Like, extra bad fire. Soul burning fire. Like lightsaber level ouchies or some shit. Also comes in Raining From The Sky Like The Literal End Of Days flavor. It's pretty gr8.
→ FIREPROOF | All little demonic hellboys are fireproof, especially the ones who cast hellfire specifically and do a lot of possession/vesselage stuff. Mostly, at least. Well, normal fire isn't going to do much to them.
→ DEMONIESE/DEMON RADIO | Max is fluent in German, English, Latin and Hellspawn (Angungol, formally). Also hears a fairly regular mental stream of demon chatter going on in his head.
→ VOID WALKING | This one time Max woke up a really old shaman, who slapped him into a spirit journey, which, because he was less spectral and more demonic plane, ended up being a month long dance through the demonic plane, while gross nightmare fuel things hissed in his ear and talked about skinning him alive and wear him like a meat bag 8D It was p great. But it helped his transitioning as far as vesseling and mainly berserking goes a lot. Due to what happened to him as a child in the Reed compound, Max's mind had sort of always been half forcibly cracked open to the demonic plane, in an incomplete sort of way that just made him constantly vulnerable. Gaining the ability to actually phase into this plane of spiritual existence, walk around in it, and sort of almost be another one of the spirits gave him a means to more cohesively slip in and out of this. This also allows him to see the reality around him from the more magical, spiritual side - able to feel what things pulse with magic, what kind of magic it is, where it goes, where it came from, how old it is, possibly even a signature of who put it there. It lets him reverse-possess as well, jumping into spirits and pulling them apart to look at all the experiences and memories held in however long that spirit has existed for, and the places it has been. It makes tomb raiding and learning the history of a place very easy for him. Also, finding booby traps. You know how them ancient magic bros loved their booby traps, we've all seen Indiana Jones, we know how this goes. While phasing into the demonic plane is generally a mental more than physical thing, with enough effort and energy, Max can swap himself completely into it, and go poof from the world for a time. This little trick is also hella dangerous, because every demony thing close to him will immediately know he's physically there, and be all up on him. Since it's a spiritual plane, he relies more on his natural power to keep himself safe, but yeah. That's a bitch, and it's not a fun place to be, but can be very useful. However, his mind is still cracked open to all things demonic, so, on a day to day basis, Max will see gross demonic things just hanging out on the sidewalk, or hear them screeching in his ear, etc.
→ CORRUPTION | A gradual sickness that manifests over the span of either a few seconds or minutes or hours or days (generally not longer than that), that is put into a monster (or person haaaa) like a seed of compact demonic energy/chaotic ouchy nonsense, that blossoms and grows like an infection. It can either grow into physical sickness, killing off and shutting down organs, filling up your veins with nasty black tar type substances, make you feel like molten lava is spreading around right under your skin (because it is), or have a more mentally damaging side of it, gradually cracking a person or beast's mind open to the fucking horrors of the demonic plane :'33333 and driving you gd batshit. And turning you into a demon/monster magnet. It's a nasty spell, u don't want this shit. At the end of it, either you go totally nuts, or your insides melt, or, on some very special occasions, you explode 8D So, basically, if you pissed Max off, and he gives you a pseudo-friendly slap in the chest before he leaves, pls go see a priest immediately, or your insides and/or mind is not going to be having a good time. He can, however, mostly control the range of horrible he inflects from just 'i'm going to make you want to die for a day' to 'i'm going to make you legitimately melt from the inside out'. The latter he will generally not use on people. ............Much. :|
→ MAGIC BATTERY | less an ability, more just something Max is good for. Because he has such a high generation of magical energy at any given time (largely due to what was done to him as a kid at the Reed compound, his magical nature is a bit broken), he ends up with a lot of excess that he burns off. It's a large part of why he's so active and why so many of his spells are such high cost, big output things, and end up difficult to control or narrow down (also why he gets so many spellwork tattoos, to help with control and precision). This makes him kind of a powerhouse, and thus, if he's tethered by another magic user (a very, very unfun experience, that is very, very dangerous to detangle from), he can be a very effective magic battery and spell booster. However, it's at great risk to Max, as well as something that's deeply traumatizing to him, because of what the Reed cult had planned to do with him (it's a recurring theme in his nightmares). It's something that would only happen when things are absolutely dire, and when it's done by someone he has a lot of trust in.
AGE 28+:
→ DEMONIC FORGING | With James' help, Max reconstructed a forge hammer used by and ancient Nordic runic forgemaster responsible for the creation of many of the powerful magical relics Max had spent about a decade uncovering, retrieving or hiding better than they were previously hidden. They constructed a forge out of the enchanted skull of a dragon, so that it can withstand holding Hellfire in it, and Max develops a new technique to siphon demonic spirits into items - things used as magical totems or weapons. Some of them sort of a little like "I cant be with you all the time to use my demonic destructiony crap to protect you, so pls take this with u, it will fuck things up in my place". He can also put another plane's magic into a weapon, and use the demonic spirit more as a power source, if someone prefers, but that witch would have to be present during the forging of the weapon. Which is sort of a nightmare fuel kind of process to be around. It's gross. The only tool he needs for it is the forgemaster's hammer, as Max doesn't actually shape the weapons with the metalworking tools - the magic and the spirit going into the weapon or item shapes it, often ending up looking like this or this or this. The only other thing required is an enchanted metal, and a forge that can hold Hellfire without melting. Technically, he could ask a live dragon to just open their mouth and let him forge a weapon inside, but all the dragons from Max's world would have just eaten him on sight. Thus, dead one. Sorry, dragon-friend :(
AGE 34+:
→ REAVE | Max takes hold of a demon, monster or even human, and both physically and spiritually flings them into the chaos of the Hellside Outer Ring, to be shredded down to their particle make up by the elements. He can also use this to pull a friend into the place he goes to for him Void Walking ability, where he more just hides in the edges of the Inner and Outer rings. It's a dangerous place there, so he can't really leave anyone there or they'll either be snatched up by wandering malevolent spirits, or sucked out into the chaotic void of the Outer Ring. In a game, this would operate more as just "feeding my enemies to the void between worlds" or "hiding right at the edges of being here and being not here". Max would not be able to actually go anywhere, just hide for a little bit.
AGE 40+:
IDEFK
AGE 50:
IDEFK, BUTTS and looking hot for 300 years or something
Also, Max fucking sucks at any kind of scrying or divination, and his summoning skills are eh. Typically, he doesn't summon unless there's a specific demon he wants a specific power to steal from, or to talk to. Given he's such a powerhouse/walking tank, he really doesn't need the rest of the stuff/it would be really OP for me to give him anything else. So, he is precious boom boom explosion baby. He has other boos to do the most meticulous things for him.