Powers, Abilities, and Talents

Omens of the Weaver of Blades

Like all greater demons, Locutor’s presence exerts a warping effect on the world around him that draws the material universe into alignment and reification of his nature. When the world favors the summoning of Locutor:

• Bearing weapons at all times becomes fashionable.
• Plants wither as if trod upon by thousands of armored feet.
• Calls for pacifism are treated as insults.

When Locutor is summoned, the world is pulled towards violence. As war is his primary summoning condition, usually this pull is barely noticeable. In the rare circumstances where he is summoned into places where war is not possible, the world orchestrates other varieties of violence such as riots, or sometimes, tournament arcs.

Humbling Lesser Divinities

Long ago, the Cosmic Empress sat on a throne atop a perfected hierarchy and none, not man nor beast, nor god dared to move against her. The world is worse now and many are the demon lords and emperors who see the state of the Throne and Castle as an invitation to insurrection. Locutor, among all her sons, demonstrates to intruders upon his mother's body that they have made a terminal mistake.

Locutor may not be able to kill other gods in any permanent sense, but he will not be defeated through attrition by the persistence of other immortals. When Locutor successfully vanquishes an immortal foe, he adds them to a list of categorical immunities he possesses for a year and a day. Whatever lessons they learn or new tactics they bring upon reforming themselves, they will find it shatters against his armor.

I Am Many-Armed and Slaughter Nations

What army can hope to stand against the Weaver of Blades? For he is unimpeded by numbers and and each swing of his blade leaves nothing living above the earth or below the sky.

Locutor's attacks can cast columns of cutting force and curtains of fire over ranges up to 100 meters.

Summary Slaughter of the Routed

Fear is a disease that debases humans into falling somehow lower than they already have. Fleeing while your brethren in arms die behind you is one of the greatest dishonors that fear can provoke. Locutor reflexively ignites foes fleeing from him (usually a death sentence for mortal targets) and spares them the shame of surviving the comrades they've betrayed through cowardice—such is the pinnacle of his capacity for mercy.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Locutor's unaugmented strength is superhuman, as is his stamina and dexterity. He can quickly heal from even grievous wounds, though not fast enough to effect the outcome of a fight. He is a master of melee, magic, and hand-to-hand combat, but has no skill with ranged weapons as he refuses to use them.

The fire that makes up the demons of The Throne and Castle, physically, works like regular fire, but will stick to any surface and needs no fuel to burn. On a magical, metaphysical level, the fire counts as being "made of hate" in addition to being radioactive. For example, someone that is immune to fire for magical reasons would only partially resist it, and take reduced damage accordingly.

Aegis of Contempt: The Categorical Immunity to Dishonorable Tactics

The craven deserve nothing but contempt. So weak are they that they hide even their cowardice behind words like "cunning" or "tactics." The disgust of Locutor and the puissance of his swords shatters arrows mid-flight and compels his would-be ambushers to reveal themselves or burn.

Mechanically, Locutor cannot be beaten in any combat that is not fair and honorable. It is worth noting however that defeated-in-combat and defeated are not the same thing. Locutor’s long history features several prominent defeats where his foes outsmarted him and thwarted his ambitions without ever facing him on the field of battle.

Inventory

The Harem of Blades

Locutor is wed to his four swords. Each of them existed before Locutor and the Weaver of Blades earned his sobriquet by seducing each of them in turn, welcoming them as one of his lesser demons, and weaving them a wedding veil that imparted a bladed shape so that he might bear his two wives and two husbands with him into battle. Each sword is a great treasure of the realm of spirits that Locutor bid transform into a weapon in his panoply:

• Echo of First-Violence: She is the sound made the first time rock bit into human flesh. Drawn by her distant song, Locutor sojourned and found her within a cavern in Hell. He opened the cavern and immediately she hid from him and was silent. He plied her with sweet words until she was willing to show herself.

  "Won’t you sing your song for me?" he pleaded until she sang once more. "Your song is so beautiful, it should not be hidden away or possessed just by me. Won’t you sing your song for the world?"

  She takes the form of a brass club lined with obsidian teeth.

• Answering Challenges from Afar: He is a force like a gale or a strange gravity that diverts or tempts projectiles from their target. Locutor met him upon the silence-scarred heath where Jagganath has lease.

  "One as mighty as you must be able to send a projectile through me and have it hit its mark," was the challenge he offered to Locutor.

  The Weaver of Blades fired bows, chucked stones, and hurled spears, but each was sent astray. At last, Locutor flung himself through the air and struck his target with his fists. Astonished by this feat of strength, the mighty wind swooned and fell into Locutor’s hands and remains there to this day.

  He takes the shape of a jian.

• United in Purpose: Once, he was known as United in Blood, and he was a great rope forged by the Architect of Natural Law to lash together humans that shared kin. Locutor found him tied around a writhing mass of humans connected by blood alone and shook his head with disapproval.

  "You think to bind a nation together against outsiders, but you do not know what makes a nation, for you bind together both the loyal and the treacherous simply because they share blood."

  The rope looked inward and saw this was true. The Architect, in its inability to know the hearts of men, tried to sort them by appearance. United in Blood bound traitors within him and left many loyal men outside of him.

  With a touch, Locutor undid the knot that held the rope’s two ends together and said, “I shall make better use of you.” And he lashed together those with unquestionable loyalty into a mass whose hearts beat in unison against their foes.

  He takes the shape of a talwar wreathed in fire.

• Welcoming Worthy Foes: She is the respect between warriors and the idea that war and violence have an art within them. Locutor watched multitudes of warriors be embraced by her and die in the space between breaths and blade strikes where perversion cannot survive.

  "Let me hold you as well," she said to the Weaver of Blades and each of the ten thousand times she took him into her arms, it destroyed him. On the ten thousand and first, he survived and proposed that it was his turn to hold her instead.

  She takes the form of a katana with a glowing green blade.

Locutor bears each of these treasures in his heart and pulls them from his chest in an eruption of green fire when it is time for battle.