Flicker

Physical Appearance

Flicker is often described as a massive, flaming ball of light bright enough to blind anyone who looks at him directly. Some say he's a ball of fire, while others say it's more of a glowing plasma. Those who have seen him up close would tell you neither of these are true, but rather he's a humanoid creature which surrounds himself in a protective glowing aura. If you can manage to get past the aura his appearance is far more average.

Roughly six feet tall, Flicker takes on the appearance of a fairy like creature. He has an elven body with many bright, luminescent dragonfly wings attached to his back. How many wings he truly has is hard to say, as they tend to flutter and blur together. It's known he has at least six, making three sets of two. His skin is near stark white, but the soft glow his body gives off makes it almost look like a shiny yellow wax. His hair is a fiery orange and is kept spiked up like the flame of a candle.

In terms of clothing Flicker tends to dress warmly, which may be considered odd for someone damn near made of fire. He's often seen wearing a bright orange cloak with tiny glowing tags attached at its edges. Around his neck is a MASSIVE scarf who's edges flow and move like tendrils on some eldritch creature. Attached at various points on the scarf are hundreds of thousands of glowing lanterns which often come off and trail wherever he goes. Hence the title “The Lantern King”.

One thing well known about Flicker is his inability to cast a shadow. In place of one is a dull orange yellow silhouette which follows him around and generally mimics his every move like you'd expect from a shadow. But, most people who've met him in person will tell you this "shadow of light" is far more than just a projection. Many claim to see it act of its own free will, moving in a way that contrasts with Flicker rather than mirrors him.

General info

Flicker is, has, and always will be around. Being one of the first powerful magic entities in his realm it’s said that Flicker has the power to shape the very fabric of time and space on a whim, and he’s more than proved that over the years. No one really knows how or why he came to be. Not even he could answer that question himself, although Flicker’s never cared to know and probably wouldn’t even if he did somehow find out.

While he is a being of great power, his influence over the world has been far more passive than other gods of his status. Typically, all of his “work” has revolved around pestering a different god and causing whatever they were doing to go astray. Flicker is known for being a cunning and intelligent prankster and he uses his vast and seemingly infinite amounts of power to cause mischief.

Over the years many people have attempted to seek out this deity and overthrow him. Seeing as his known influence over the world has been little to nothing people wrongfully assume he’s weak or a pushover. But with so many attempts on his life happening time and time again Flicker has taken precautions to keep people away. One of his few known creations are that of Will o wisps: creatures said to lead travelers to their fate, destiny, doom, etc depending on what version of the folklore you read up on. In reality they were creatures created to lead people away from Flicker himself, or generally torment and confuse them as per his status quo.

In terms of home, Flicker has none. There’s no single plane or planet he calls his own. In general he considers the universe itself his home; a home that should be explored. It’s not uncommon to see him wandering from world to world or plane to plane to sample everything each one has to offer. Or, more specifically, scope these places out for people to torment and gather inspiration for bigger and better pranks.

Abilities

Like many deities of his status, the true extent of Flicker’s powers are unknown. That being said, there’s several he’s known for. The main one being his ability to shapeshift. Flicker’s natural form is a massive, flaming, amorphous blob of light, but a creature like that is difficult to communicate with. So he’s adopted the forms of other beings to better aid in communication. Commonly he uses this ability to turn into a fairy-like being.

While he does have the ability to make his shifted forms “normal”, Flicker usually ops not to. He has a certain… Obsession with light and will refuse to dim his brilliant glow unless absolutely necessary.

Speaking of light, Flicker is able to bend and warp light in seemingly impossible or unnatural ways. This is most evident in his “shadow”, which emits a soft yellow glow rather than being dark like one might expect. This ability extends to other things as well, such as Will o Wips mentioned above or his immense aura of light. It’s more common for him to create more light than it is for him to dim existing lighting, although he does have the ability to snuff lights out as well.

Personality

Flicker is a fairly happy-go-lucky kind of guy. At least, that’s how he comes off. Even in the most dire of situations he always has a joke or quip at the ready. Hell, half the time it doesn’t even seem like he’s really paying attention to others as they speak. Given his natural form lacks eyes and, well, a face in general, he’s still not the most cued in on the whole “body language” thing. If he can hear someone he sees no reason to have to ALSO look at them. That’s just weird. But don’t take his seeming lack of awareness too seriously. Flicker IS listening, and he remembers just about everything for the sole reason of “I might be able to use this against you later”

Typical for a Chaotic Neutral individual, Flucker is easily distracted and side tracked. Nothing really has any significant meaning or weight to him, so once something ceases to be interesting or entertaining he’ll just drop it. He doesn’t view himself as “above” lesser creatures or anything though. It’s more he just… Can’t find a reason to continue to pay attention to things deemed uninteresting more often than not. Mortals all die eventually, time always continues forwards, and if something really is a problem one of the other gods will take care of it.

While an avid prankster, Flicker’s pranks and practical jokes are never intentionally malicious. That’s not to say they don’t cause misfortune or even death at times, but none of them are ever set up with the intention to cause such things. All of Flicker’s pranks are crafted with the sole intention of his own entertainment. At times his quest for entertainment makes him overlook simple things, like the fact mortals are fragile and the mortal mind is easily broken.

The majority of Flicker’s pranks are ones with a slow burn but end in a bang. Many involve gaslighting people to a minor extent, usually by making them believe they’re the only one seeing/hearing/experiencing something. Flicker has created far too many conspiracy theorists and fairy hunters simply by only revealing himself to them and no one else in their town. Sometimes he forgets just how impactful it can be for a mortal to see a god.

Flicker goes by many names. Hell, Flicker isn’t even his real name, but his real name is too complicated for the average person to pronounce. Hence the name “Flicker”. He’s also known by Flick, or the Lantern King. All of his names have the theme of light for what should be obvious reasons. Being a god of light and a literal beacon in nis natural form, he’s taken quite the shine to light and light based puns. Some say he’s terrified of the dark, which only amplifies his light-based tendencies. This has never been proven, though. Kinda difficult to get a living candle into a dark area.

As a Patron

Like many deities, mortals are able to form a pact with Flicker or worship him as their patron. Witches and warlocks are his most common followers, although other classes such as clerics or paladins have been known to follow him on rare occasions. Getting in contact with Flicker is easy. Many refer to him as “The Lantern King” because the easiest way of communicating with him is to write him a note, attach it to a floating lantern, and let it go into the night sky.

Of course, gods are busy people, so one can’t just write anything on these lanterns. Most commonly his followers are pranksters themselves to some extent, so people have taken to writing stories of their most recent prank or practical joke as a means of sticking out and grabbing his attention. If he does opt to reply it’ll usually be via the same lanturn. He’ll simply write a response to his follower and send the lanturn back to them. That is, of course, if their request warrants a written response. More often than not Flicker will simply grant his followers whatever power boost or boon they ask for and leave it at that. Things he feels warrant a conversation will usually result in a face to face one rather than an exchange of letters. Not only is talking face to face easier, but he ALSO gets an opportunity to mess with whatever poor soul summoned him to begin with.

Flicker generally grants his powers to those with a similar mindset as his own. Chaotic neutral is his preferred alignment, but he’s been known to work with all chaotic alignments. “Good” and “evil” have no real meaning to him, so as long as ones goals aren’t detrimental to his existence he really doesn’t care what someone does with the powers he grants them.

Unlike many other gods, there’s no real known religion surrounding the Lantern King. At most he’s a key character in old fairy tales and folklore. Maybe a myth or two, but that’s about it. Flicker doesn’t attract religious organizations or cultists simply due to the fact he has no agenda. Not even his followers would be able to tell you what his goals are, aside from general mischief. If he DOES have any ulterior motives he’s done a damn good job keeping them on the down low for the past… Million or so years. Though some do believe he’s in it for the “long haul” and may have a prank of catastrophic proportions in the works.

Other shit

I envision him having like a peppy British accent. London accent? Vaguely European accent? I have no fucking idea, but something like that. One you’d expect to hear from a stuck up and posh billionaire, but he always says things a toddler on crack would say.

I’m working on more of a set “backstory” for him currently, but what I have so far is off in the feywild some other deity captured and imprisoned him. Probably because they were sick and tired of his stupid pranks. He’s been there for a LONG long time, but then ALONG COMES MARSHALL who helps him escape and then the two go wreak havoc in the feywild as Marshall determines that his visions into this realm were tied to the Lantern King. That sentence was buckwild and poorly written but it gets the point across.

FLICK USES HIS LANTERN STICK AS A PERCH!!! Like, stab stick into ground, sit on top of stick. Like a cat. Or a bird. Higher = better.

Oh! He’s always FUCKING COLD. He’s a literal ball of fire. Hottest thing that could exist. Every environment is colder than his natural temperature, so he’s always cold. ThAT BEING SAID he doesn’t burn people/objects on contact. He has magic. He can turn that on/off on a whim. Like, he could burn you if he wanted? But he’s smart enough not to cause unnecessary destruction

Chaotic =/= stupid. Basically imagine CANON DC with Lumi’s disposition. He’s smart and calculated, just easily distracted and somewhat uncaring.

OH MY GOD HIS VOICE CLAIM IS WHEATLY FROM PORTAL HELL YEAH SMART WHEATLY