[Edeia] Aletheia
MonochromeStar
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"The lies we tell others and the lies we tell ourselves…If you believe them, are they not the truth, if only for you?"
A liar and trickster, Aletheia spends most of his time in disguise. He hides in plain sight, taking on new identities until he grows bored of them. He hides his true intentions under layers of lies. Even those that think they understand him only know what he allows them to.
"A lie is a tool like any other. There is no shame in using a tool when you must."
Aletheia is a playful and free-spirited individual. He is always changing, shifting forms and behavior to suit his current interests. He usually avoids conflict, but sometimes he’ll start minor trouble just to see what happens. Much of his time is spent wandering from place to place, mingling with people. He’ll stay in one area for a while, taking on a new identity until he decides to move on.
He chooses his identities based on the people he wants to interact with. Each form is effectively a character for to play, with different behavior, speech, and body language. He’ll create a false history for them and remain in character as long as he wears that face. With his power over perception, people are made to believe that he has always been a part of their lives.
While his outward behavior is whimsical, every aspect of his identity is a series of carefully constructed lies. When taking on a role, he’ll often become what another person wants him to be. Those identities mask his life as an Edeia, which itself is designed to let him move around without restrictions. As an Edeia, he’ll play up the role of “the liar” and make himself appear more untrustworthy than he is. There are deeper layers of deception, including calculated slip-ups that let people believe they can tell when he’s trying to manipulate them.
At his core, Aletheia is not malicious, but he is calculating. He keeps a measured distance from others and rarely allows anyone to see him when he isn’t playing some role. He is far more guarded than he portrays himself to be, in part because he doesn’t see himself as belonging anywhere. People are inherently inclined to distrust or avoid him, especially those with strong ideals surrounding honesty.
The only thing he really dislikes is when someone makes blanket judgements about lies. For him, lies are a tool. Some may use the tool improperly, and some may use it to cause harm, but a lie by itself is not inherently bad. Those who are uncompromising in their ideals bother him; he sees it as a rejection of himself and will actively avoid those people.
Truth behind the lie
Aletheia knows when a person is lying and, if he wishes, he can discern the truth that is being hidden.
Seamless transition
Aletheia is especially adept at shapeshifting. He has many temporary forms that he has used for different roles. He can easily recall all of the idiosyncrasies assigned to each form to stay “in character” when he goes back to them. He can also replicate existing people to take their place, matching their behavior patterns to sell the deception. His natural form is prone to changing colors to suit his mood.
What I want you to see
This ability allows him to alter the perception of those nearby for different effects. Most commonly, he uses it to convince people that he has “always been there,” allowing him to insert himself into their lives without drawing undue attention.
He can also use this ability to erase his presence without needing to become invisible. This way, people will not notice him even when looking directly at him. If he wants to, he can allow certain people to see him when no one else can.
What’s true for me
Aletheia can create minor illusions, usually used for small special effects or distractions. The illusions are detectable by all five senses, but they are limited to what he knows about. He cannot create the illusion of something he doesn’t have a mental image of. Illusions will persist until he no longer needs them.
Truth from a lie
This ability comes from the idea that a lie repeated often enough can be seen as truth. Its effect is limited by the nature of the lie and the strength of the will behind it. An oft-repeated lie about someone’s personality (such as a selfish person calling themself generous) can result in them becoming the type of person they claimed to be. A weak-willed lie would have little effect, only resulting in small behavior changes that revert over time.
When this power is used, changes made by the lie are masked by Aletheia’s power over perception. He rarely uses this ability; when he does, he’s more inclined to use it on people trying to change themselves.
Changes that affect the greater world, rather than an individual, require a very strong will to manifest them as truth. An ordinary person cannot, for example, change the color of the sky by telling everyone that it’s green, nor can they declare that they are fantastically wealthy. The impact of such a change would be extremely complicated to mask, and large lies can very easily fall apart. Even if there was a strong enough will behind the lie, Aletheia would not use this power for drastic changes.
A long hallway paved with pale stone sits below a vast, empty black sky. A few beams of moonlight shine down, but no moon is visible. There is no land outside of the hallway; only more inky darkness. To step off of the hallway would be to fall into an endless abyss.
The hallway is lined with mirrors. Through the infinite reflections, one can see countless versions of themself. Some are similar to reality, while others are drastically different. Not all reflections mirror the person’s movements. The hallway seems to stretch on for eternity, an infinite row of false reflections.
Both the abyss and the hall of mirrors hide the heart of the Abstraction. To enter, one can fall into the abyss or walk through a mirror. From there, they emerge in a large tower with no doors, no windows, and no ceiling. Two moons hover over the tower, one appearing too close while the other seems far away. Masks adorn the walls, imitations of the various identities Aletheia has taken on, and a spiral staircase winds its way up to a platform at the top.
From the platform, the nearest moon seems close enough to touch, but it hovers just out of reach. Far below the tower’s base is the hall of mirrors.
- Though the shades of magenta are his default colors, Aletheia freely and frequently changes his color schemes.
- His natural Edeia form is rarely seen; he normally takes on various human forms, even when interacting with other Edeia.
- The hands that make up his face with change poses to make different expressions. He also makes dramatic arm gestures.
- His various human forms often have little in common with one another. Age, gender, and appearance are adapted to suit the role he's playing at the moment, rather than out of desire for a specific aesthetic. When not in a role, he defaults to his favorite human form, which was chosen to suit an aesthetic.
Aletheia's favorite human appearance. In this form, he stands around 5'9". His clothes are sleek and deliberately tattered in a way that leaves people wondering if he's poor and trying to look wealthy, or wealthy and trying to look poor.
His power over perception keeps people from noticing how stark white his skin is.
“I come from a world where fragments of other worlds blended together and pretended they belonged.”
In the beginning
Before he became Aletheia, he was Argent. Though his name meant “silver,” his life was more like fool’s gold. His family struggled to keep what little they had, but they refused to admit when they needed help. Argent wouldn’t say that they lived above their means, but they did. It was like watching someone drown while they insisted they could breathe underwater.
They lived on the upper end of a city built on the backs of other worlds. The wealthy collected artifacts that they didn’t understand, while the poor cleaned up what couldn’t be used. This unstable world was a beautiful mess of clashing aesthetics, with technology that somehow managed to fuse many disparate functions. Argent saw the effects of those artifacts from the fringes and, much like his parents, pretended that he understood them.
Despite his parents’ best efforts to keep up, people noticed what they lacked. While they worked themselves to the bone, barely able to afford their home, he spent more and more time alone. Neighbors asked questions about this frail, lonely-looking boy. The young Argent, afraid that his family would get in trouble, smiled and told them, “I’m alright.” That was his first lie, and it was one that he got very used to repeating.
Learning to lie
Life got better. Life got worse. A poor boy, a little too frail and a little too shabby, stood out wherever he went. Sometimes people avoided him. Sometimes they pitied him. He wasn’t sure which was more unbearable. Was it the people that thought themselves superior, or the ones with bleeding hearts that just had to “save” him? All he wanted was to keep his head down…
He got older. He got wiser. He learned to read people, figure out what they wanted from him, and blend in. Sometimes he played with their pity; it was an easy way to get a meal. Sometimes he had to say just the right thing to avoid a fight. He learned how to avoid unwanted attention, and he learned how to say just enough. Lying became incredibly easy. He’s not sure when he stopped feeling guilty about it.
Layers of lies built up around him. With his carefully-constructed social mask, everyone thought they knew the “real” Argent. All they knew was the story he told: the story of a boy that was going through a rough time but didn’t let it get him down. It was a watered-down, more palatable version of his life. He didn’t tell anyone about his parents’ arguments or the times when there was no food for days. He just bent the truth to become the ideal “downtrodden child,” pitiful but brave.
Changes
Time passed. When Argent was on the cusp of adulthood, there was an accident. His parents died and he lost what little he had. The funeral was small, with only a few of his parents’ friends. They wrapped their arms around him and gave their condolences. They offered to help with anything he needed. They lied. Argent didn’t know exactly how he knew, but he could tell they were lying. They said what he wanted to hear at the moment, playing the role of grieving friends while hoping he wouldn’t take them up on their offers. He lied right back, telling them he would be fine on his own.
“I’m alright.” Sometimes, that phrase felt like a curse. Sometimes it was his salvation. Two little words to escape an unpleasant conversation, to hide his intentions, to avoid trouble. For years, those words were his foundation even though they were rarely true. He was never really alright, but if he said it enough, perhaps he would be.
Something stirred in his mind, a connection to a world that wasn’t his own. It had always been there, ever since he first learned to lie, but he ignored it as he focused on surviving. The night of the funeral, his eyes changed colors. Nobody noticed.
Days passed, and Argent had to plan. He needed money, so he lied his way into a job. He needed a place to live, so he made excuses to stay with friends and buy some time to get a place of his own. All the while, a strange feeling kept telling him that something was missing.
Becoming Aletheia
One night, he passed by his reflection in a window and saw something that wasn’t quite himself. The warped reflection shimmered and gave him a glimpse into another world, one where ideas held power, and he understood. This is what had been pulling at him for so long.
There was no decision to make. He held no real love for his world now that he was alone. There was nothing left that he would mind leaving behind. Without looking back, Argent stepped through the reflection into a space that was unlike anything he’d known before. In that strange space, he changed. He drifted through the darkness of his Abstraction and came through the other side as someone else.
It didn’t take long for him to get used to his powers. Changing appearances was unexpected, but fascinating. He chose a new name, took on another new human form, and twisted perception just enough to remain unnoticed. He hid his identity as a boy from another world, and as an Edeia, while exploring this new world.
The Age of Secrecy was ending. As the world transitioned into Reunion, Aletheia wanted to experience the changes as a person while maintaining relative anonymity. He went through many identities over time, leaving when he got bored or felt that his role had run its course. If he encountered other Edeia, he interacted with them as his current human role. In this way, he has remained hidden in plain sight since his arrival.
- The name “Aletheia” is a layered play on his identity. He spent most of his life pretending to be open and honest. He uses the name to continue that trend. Another layer is his understanding that most lies have some basis in truth. He also believes that lies can be used to reveal a different truth.
- At times, he’ll hint that “Aletheia” isn’t actually his name, referring to it as an alias. It’s unclear if this is true or just a trick to make people suspicious of his real identity. It could also be a reference to him occasionally still going by “Argent.”
- He’ll make up a different story any time he’s asked about his past. He even hides when he arrived in the world of Edeia, claiming anything from “last week” to “long before humans appeared.” He goes out of his way to make sure nobody knows the truth behind who he used to be.
- His original world had many connections to different places. Small rifts appeared at random, sometimes persisting and sometimes fading away over time. Argent had a connection to Idea magic through one of these persistent rifts.
- His favored human form is similar to his original human appearance.
- He occasionally disappears to other worlds. The inconsistent flow of time has left him genuinely unsure of how old he is by any world’s calendar.
ELSYNE
• friend • owner:
SymeSynth
Two people that share the questionable hobbies of taking on new identities and causing varying degrees of mischief.
SILVANO
• friend • owner:
Void_Gremlin
A chaotic troublemaker met a guy that can't be honest and now they're probably going to get banned from the whole world or something. Check your pockets.
IMI
• friend • owner:
Yasahiro1011
A perpetual motion machine built on bad ideas and the rule of comedy: if it's funny, they'll do it. The two fuel each other's playful tendencies with little regard for the problems they'll cause.
SAMAEL
• acquaintence • owner:
MonochromeStar
As two people from the same world, Samael and Aletheia share a certain comraderie. However, the lives they lived were very different and both have complicated feelings about home. As individuals, they're on friendly enough terms.
