I am the Reaper. All things with heedful hook Silent I gather. Pale roses touched with the spring, Tall corn in summer, Fruits rich with autumn, and frail winter blossoms— Reaping, still reaping All things with heedful hook Timely I gather. I am the Sower. All the unbodied life Runs through my seed-sheet. Atom with atom wed, Each quickening the other, Fall through my hands, ever changing, still changeless. Ceaselessly sowing, Life, incorruptible life, Flows from my seed-sheet. Maker and breaker, I am the ebb and the flood, Here and Hereafter, Sped through the tangle and coil Of infinite nature, Viewless and soundles I fashion all being. Taker and giver, I am the womb and the grave, The Now and the Ever.
Summary: When the warm months brought work in the fields, Nergal would head the effort. It was easy to spot him out there, his great stature loomed above the other workers, beaming down at them. The time of harvest was always his favorite. He would sing as he swung a huge scythe through the field, flattening the landscape. He swayed and cut throughout the day, working until the sun dimmed over the horizon. The year the rains left, the fields caught fire. With their loss, something left him. He would stand in the scorched remains, looking out over the darkened expanse. He was like a shadow without a body to cast it. He was the third brother among the Isu, who drew for his share the underworld and the rule over the dead. He was also called Pluto, the God of Wealth, of the precious metals hidden in the ground. It was rare that he left his dark realm to visit Elysium or Nibiru, nor was he urged to do so. He was not a welcome visitor. Nergal is also the Isu of Wealth (as plants and metal come from the underworld) and is hence highly regarded. Otherwise, as Isu of the Dead, he is feared, and Nergal is not a good thing to speak. He will not help people if they give him sacrifices, though will occasionally answer people's curses. Above all, though, Nergal is a just, terrifying, and inexorable Isu. He is childless, and his wife often does not love him. He is "grim" and "fearsome", but he is neither evil, nor unjust. In fact, he may be the one just Isu. Of the few that have entered the Netherworld and come back, all speak dismally of the place, never wishing to return. Yet Nergal himself rarely leaves the subterranean realm, constantly seeking ways to grow the numbers of the dead. While many fear death and view it as evil, in truth, Nergal endeavors only to keep balance. Silent, bent, and tattered, he patiently fulfills his role. |
In the end, death inevitably brings all back to Nergal. Yet, to Nergal, mortals are easy prey. Their end is preordained, harvesting them but a game to pass the eons, but another Isu, a being beyond the mortal coil, now there is a creature Nergal eyes with greedy longing. He despises the immortality other Isu covet. To him, it is a perversion and defiance of his very purpose. But can an Isu truly die? As the Heavens clash and immortal blood spills on Nibiru, Nergal hungers to find out. War is but the preamble to death, a battlefield of souls rent from their bodies, listlessly waiting to be taken by the Isu-god of Death.
New Moon (25%)
This is Nergal, manipulator of death. An Isu-God with powers likened to that of a necromancer and dark arts practitioner, his abilities exploit the vulnerabilities of the living and the corpses of the dead. Nergal possesses the battlefield and death is his playground. You speak the incantation to summon the powers of Nergal, "Blessed are the dead, and now you are among them," dark knots contorting and gnarling in a way around you that sounds like evil laughter. The scratching cackle pulses forward in a shock-wave of madness that rushes over everything in the vicinity, revealing a guardian hunched protectively around your body; a gargantuan eighteen-armed skeletal being with a single set of its arms draping over you as if to shield you. In its left socket it has an orb of red light, and its right socket is completely vacant--dark. The forehead of this guardian, whose name is Akroma, has a vertical slit for an eye that is milky white. These three different eyes are theorized to represent the different phases and lifetime of a star. In this sameness we can also theorize that these eyes represent the beginning, middle and end of the macrocosm (universe), how it will begin in a fiery explosion (Big Bang, red eye), transition into the Degenerate Era (all stars run out of fuel and become blue dwarves, white eye), and then eventually the final stage of a universe without matter, only expanding darkness (empty black eye). A massive double-sided scythe (Anguish of Eidolon) then emerges from your shadow, rising up until its full length is visible to the world where upon it stands on its tail until retrieved by its wielder. The scythe is composed of a purple haft that is sixteen foot in total length, making it more than twice the size of a standard Annunaki. Its head is made up of an ornate golden sickle, the front face of which crescents downward with a curve. The very bottom of the scythe's shaft contains another sickle, smaller and curved like the depiction of a velociraptor's claw. The entire weapon is bathed in a venemous green aura formed from Nergal's presence. |
Eidolon is identified with the ability to "attack from anywhere." You can strike at shadows with your scythe, allowing it to enter that particular shadow and emerge from another in order to deliver an unexpected attack on an opponent's blindspot. This is why Eidolon is such an abnormally long weapon. It can enter any shadow and emerge from another within a large five-hundred meter radius. In addition to allowing the scythe to strike from any location, you can use Eidolon yourself to pass into the shadows, allowing you to press the attack directly. If the scythe's ability is to "attack from anywhere," then Akroma's ability is the "ability to attack from everywhere." The eighteen withered arms are capable of individual free movement, allowing you to send them through several shadows at once and attack an opponent from numerous directions. Further enhancing this ability is the smaller sickle of Eidolon which are capable of cutting small portals in the air to grant further entry points for Akroma at will.
Nergal's New Moon stage is all about catching your opponent by surprise, rendering them no longer safe at any point in time. Even if they were to get rid of all shadows in the area through some form of light manipulation, they would still have to deal with the portals that Akroma creates, and even if they manage to do that, they have to deal with your up-close attacks. You're meant to weave around your opponent as brisk and precise as a dueling blade, every step sending you flying weightlessly so that you're able to catch unsuspecting angles against your adversary.
Scythe Combo #1 (自業自得 “One’s act, one’s profit"): Flick your scythe out in a succession of slashes that are faster than the sound of the cleaves reach your opponent, leaving them writhing on the ground with curls of black vapor billowing from deep wounds, an anti-healing agent.
Scythe Combo #2 (起死回生 “Wake from death and return to life"): Focus tangible Darkness onto the crescent of the scythe and land an attack, the wound delivering so much pain to the nerve receptors of the opponent that they can hear a thousand innocents screaming, pleads for aid never answered, slipping them into a comatose state.
Scythe Combo #3 (見ぬが花 "Not seeing is a flower"): Swing your scythe outward, the tattoos on your body glowing with an eerie light. A roiling storm of smoke surges from your blade, coalescing into a spectral claw that slices across your opponent's flesh in a wide arc, trailing blood and gore across the vicinity.
Nergal's New Moon stage is all about catching your opponent by surprise, rendering them no longer safe at any point in time. Even if they were to get rid of all shadows in the area through some form of light manipulation, they would still have to deal with the portals that Akroma creates, and even if they manage to do that, they have to deal with your up-close attacks. You're meant to weave around your opponent as brisk and precise as a dueling blade, every step sending you flying weightlessly so that you're able to catch unsuspecting angles against your adversary.
Scythe Combo #1 (自業自得 “One’s act, one’s profit"): Flick your scythe out in a succession of slashes that are faster than the sound of the cleaves reach your opponent, leaving them writhing on the ground with curls of black vapor billowing from deep wounds, an anti-healing agent.
Scythe Combo #2 (起死回生 “Wake from death and return to life"): Focus tangible Darkness onto the crescent of the scythe and land an attack, the wound delivering so much pain to the nerve receptors of the opponent that they can hear a thousand innocents screaming, pleads for aid never answered, slipping them into a comatose state.
Scythe Combo #3 (見ぬが花 "Not seeing is a flower"): Swing your scythe outward, the tattoos on your body glowing with an eerie light. A roiling storm of smoke surges from your blade, coalescing into a spectral claw that slices across your opponent's flesh in a wide arc, trailing blood and gore across the vicinity.
Fear is a weed, snaking in the dark. It vines within the mind, corrupting it. It germinates within tribes, dividing them. Your graces, we who are beyond death, have forgotten the simple power of fear. Let us now remember. You will find no greater power than the simple thought of your own name, inscribed upon a grave.
Our harbinger, our terror ... Nergal."
Waxing Gibbous (50%)
A swirling vortex of abyssal mist swirls and coalesces around you and Akroma, a piercing cry cuing the vortex's implosion, wreathing you in a foul essence and creating the visage of nightmares while you crouch. Akroma is no longer a massive construct that frequents wherever you step, but equipped onto your body in the form of emaciated bones, hanging black cloth and a horned mask fit to the likeness of his face and two other sets of arms that are made entirely of bone. This is the genesis of the second stage. The most drastic change to the Waxing Gibbous form is a newly equipped mask, which is now a bull skull with a missing horn, jewelry purloined from the dead dangling from your horns. This helmet is known as the Tarnhelm and classifies as an Artifact. Within the eye sockets is a complete and utter darkness that if peered into, makes your opponent experience acrophobia--light-headed and unsteady, the same type of vertigo one would get from peering down from high up. In a sense, it gives your opponents a "fear of heights," and gives off the same impression as if they were suddenly looking down at Earth from space. This can induce intense panic, space and motion discomfort, and physical aversion. In this form your every movement is elegant, giving off the impression of a graceful predator that stalks its opponent. You're are fit to carve a slicing offensive through teeming ranks with a face eerily devoid of expression while your scythe flays the ground, leaving a red line trail, sparks hissing from the contact. |
PASSIVE
-A shadowy bog consistently pours from cracks on the bones equipped onto your body. The actual fog itself appears to have no real ability aside from a numbing agent, but can be used to make you indiscernible in the shadowy twilight of the mist.
-Your scythe gains an enchantment that induces "pestilence" onto whatever it strikes, human bodies sloshing as if melted, turning into a black smear on the ground, leaving only the bone. You can project this attack outward as a roiling purplish cloud that causes other organic objects to suffer the same deliquescent fate.
TECHNIQUES:
Tobichiru (Confound): Your opponent will hear a croaking birdsong erupt as you summon a murder of crows to swarm your body, summoned by Darkness itself. They fly in darting, wheeling motions, swooping here and there to obscure your opponent's vision of you. You are now free to swiftly move amidst the flock, concealing your form among the many black avians in order to strike lucratively. Whenever a crow is killed, they do not bleed, but explode into a black fog from which more will spawn.
Tamashī Shūkaku (Phantom Harvest): Summon a pulse of soul-snatching Darkness which radiates from your body like a ripple. The ripple will bounce off of your opponent as a "shove," and then return back to you, tearing the life from their body as it goes. You can call the soul back into your awaiting hands, twisting your fingers in the air to claim a better hold of the power that catches a hold of their life, reeling it in like a wriggling fish on a line.
Tamashī Sekai (Phantom World): Carve a gaping hole into the fabric of reality using Eidolon, and let the tear suddenly expand to consume the entire field. It will leave you and your opponent on a barren plain with corpses littering the field as far as the eye can see, crows hopping from body to body, picking at the tastiest bits. From here you can raise these corpses which are your previously slain enemies, or send storms of black birds toward your opponent in order to confound them.
Tamashī Owari-hari (Phantom War-Sickle): With each swing of your scythe, it will now produce a screeching noise and blinding light that can only be seen by your opponent. The sound will shatter their eardrums and the light will burn their retinas so that they can no longer see anything but the image of your scythe super-imposed into their visuals, so that even when they close their eyes, they can see the crude outline of your sickle. The retinas are naturally capable of healing overtime, in which concrete images will begin to appear again (rather than all white like a camera-flash).
-A shadowy bog consistently pours from cracks on the bones equipped onto your body. The actual fog itself appears to have no real ability aside from a numbing agent, but can be used to make you indiscernible in the shadowy twilight of the mist.
-Your scythe gains an enchantment that induces "pestilence" onto whatever it strikes, human bodies sloshing as if melted, turning into a black smear on the ground, leaving only the bone. You can project this attack outward as a roiling purplish cloud that causes other organic objects to suffer the same deliquescent fate.
TECHNIQUES:
Tobichiru (Confound): Your opponent will hear a croaking birdsong erupt as you summon a murder of crows to swarm your body, summoned by Darkness itself. They fly in darting, wheeling motions, swooping here and there to obscure your opponent's vision of you. You are now free to swiftly move amidst the flock, concealing your form among the many black avians in order to strike lucratively. Whenever a crow is killed, they do not bleed, but explode into a black fog from which more will spawn.
Tamashī Shūkaku (Phantom Harvest): Summon a pulse of soul-snatching Darkness which radiates from your body like a ripple. The ripple will bounce off of your opponent as a "shove," and then return back to you, tearing the life from their body as it goes. You can call the soul back into your awaiting hands, twisting your fingers in the air to claim a better hold of the power that catches a hold of their life, reeling it in like a wriggling fish on a line.
Tamashī Sekai (Phantom World): Carve a gaping hole into the fabric of reality using Eidolon, and let the tear suddenly expand to consume the entire field. It will leave you and your opponent on a barren plain with corpses littering the field as far as the eye can see, crows hopping from body to body, picking at the tastiest bits. From here you can raise these corpses which are your previously slain enemies, or send storms of black birds toward your opponent in order to confound them.
Tamashī Owari-hari (Phantom War-Sickle): With each swing of your scythe, it will now produce a screeching noise and blinding light that can only be seen by your opponent. The sound will shatter their eardrums and the light will burn their retinas so that they can no longer see anything but the image of your scythe super-imposed into their visuals, so that even when they close their eyes, they can see the crude outline of your sickle. The retinas are naturally capable of healing overtime, in which concrete images will begin to appear again (rather than all white like a camera-flash).
Last Quarter (75%)
To reach this stage, your opponent must land a killing blow on you. Yes, this can be intentional.... after your opponent believes they have slayed you, above in the sky, ravens wheel in the air, then dive down to spiral into a dark whirlwind just above the ground. The rapid flap of their wings coalesce into a black mass, as if they all join together into one creature. Out of that mass, you step out, with ravens everywhere, perched on every rock or stump or tree limb, watching the confrontation silently.
Enthrone Darkness: Lift your hand into the air and suction the Light from your surroundings, turning the world around you and everyone in a mile-length radius a complete and utter, seemingly endless, void. In this world, there is no sound or light, and you can also
To reach this stage, your opponent must land a killing blow on you. Yes, this can be intentional.... after your opponent believes they have slayed you, above in the sky, ravens wheel in the air, then dive down to spiral into a dark whirlwind just above the ground. The rapid flap of their wings coalesce into a black mass, as if they all join together into one creature. Out of that mass, you step out, with ravens everywhere, perched on every rock or stump or tree limb, watching the confrontation silently.
Enthrone Darkness: Lift your hand into the air and suction the Light from your surroundings, turning the world around you and everyone in a mile-length radius a complete and utter, seemingly endless, void. In this world, there is no sound or light, and you can also
Full Moon (100%)
Once you reach this stage, the whisper of the grass will cease immediately in your presence, casting the world in complete and utter silence wherever you roam, like the void of dead space. Your skin and energy appear to be infernal, red-hot, heat engulfing the region from all the power you hold in your body...and despite the fact that you're in Full Moon stage, your energy signature is blank. If your opponent attempts to target you with an attack through a link, they will hit a metaphysical wall that is smooth and featureless, like dark obsidian with no entry, nothing to even latch onto. All struggle of lifting the scythe is eliminated in this phase, as well as gravity against your body and any weight constraint, including armor, allowing you to move so deftly that you defy physical parameters. You are able to move at unrealistic speeds while your scythe is light as a feather, turning you into an agile demon capable of razing down ranks of entire armies. If you wish, you may control what your opponent hears. Whispers can suddenly roll around you as tangible power, testing and prodding at your enemy's mental extremities., rendering them into madness. You can delve hushed whispers into their sensories in order to bind curses and runes. Nowhere is safe now from the edge of your scythe, as whatever you are looking at can be struck by its blade, regardless of distance.
Ethereal Silence (PASSIVE): Become shadow and completely erase yourself from the view of all ocular abilities and energy sensors--but only so long as you're outside the peripheral vision of an opponent.
All is Dust: Raise your scythe, the crescent moon blade of Eidolon's curved blade carving a massive line across the sky, tearing away
Extinguish All Hope:
Once you reach this stage, the whisper of the grass will cease immediately in your presence, casting the world in complete and utter silence wherever you roam, like the void of dead space. Your skin and energy appear to be infernal, red-hot, heat engulfing the region from all the power you hold in your body...and despite the fact that you're in Full Moon stage, your energy signature is blank. If your opponent attempts to target you with an attack through a link, they will hit a metaphysical wall that is smooth and featureless, like dark obsidian with no entry, nothing to even latch onto. All struggle of lifting the scythe is eliminated in this phase, as well as gravity against your body and any weight constraint, including armor, allowing you to move so deftly that you defy physical parameters. You are able to move at unrealistic speeds while your scythe is light as a feather, turning you into an agile demon capable of razing down ranks of entire armies. If you wish, you may control what your opponent hears. Whispers can suddenly roll around you as tangible power, testing and prodding at your enemy's mental extremities., rendering them into madness. You can delve hushed whispers into their sensories in order to bind curses and runes. Nowhere is safe now from the edge of your scythe, as whatever you are looking at can be struck by its blade, regardless of distance.
Ethereal Silence (PASSIVE): Become shadow and completely erase yourself from the view of all ocular abilities and energy sensors--but only so long as you're outside the peripheral vision of an opponent.
All is Dust: Raise your scythe, the crescent moon blade of Eidolon's curved blade carving a massive line across the sky, tearing away
Extinguish All Hope: