Devilfish:Endbringers

(todo fill this out more)

Jörmungandr

Jörmungandr (case file PRT-SPEC-0019) is a swirling series of white-grey snake coils constantly coiling in on itself in a giant sphere, with seemingly endless depths and amounts of coil resulting in its classical name. The snake coils were loosely put together, one being able to loosely see deeper within the sphere to see endless, shifting coils. Jörmungandr generally appeared as a bright point in space for several minutes before popping into appearance. When 'Driven Off' it discorporate, the main bulk of its body shrinking into a point of light and vanishing, leaving a number of oddly colored, if mundane, snakes of various species behind.

Jörmungandr has various abilities that involve "Poisoning" the area and creatures around it. While in early evolutions this was more direct, causing direct illnesses (Such as cancer, radiation poisoning, and various other ailments), later evolutions could poison the minds of creatures nearby. In the last evolution, it is suspected Jörmungandr did some of this on a larger scale, effectively "Poisoning" a city or culture. Thankfully the endbringer was stopped in that instance quickly, so not much damage occurred, thankfully. Later evolutions also increased the size and cutting power of its rotating coils, though often this was not the main danger of the creature.

Apr 25 1986 (Jörmungandr I) - Pripyat, Ukrainian SSR

The first appearance of what would come to be known as Endbringers. The Chernobyl incident. A strange, almost alien like creature had appeared, and Russia's capes rallied together but it wasn't enough. The only survivor of the incident was Heimdall who managed to drive the creature away. The Chernobyl plant was destroyed and the area became a wasteland.

In Jörmungandr's first appearance, they were a sphere roughly 10 meters in diameter, each individual coil about the diameter of an average snake. When they appeared the grass and small animals around them wilted and died almost immediately, and any fauna larger than a rabbit would begin to feel nauseous and ill, those of weaker stomachs vomiting or passing out. Many people died at the scene, developing rapidly worsening physical ailments. Notable was many cases of rapidly developing acute radiation poisoning. Those closest to the nuclear facility were later discovered as mush as radiation had essentially turned their bodies to puree. The cutting ability of the snakes were roughly comparable to that of a woodchipper, shredding things they came in contact with. The environment around its first appearance was devastated, with mass ecological die-offs essentially crippling the area. The area is lifeless scar for decades despite any attempts to prevent this, and those who stay in the area for any length of time find themselves slowly sickening of various unrelated illnesses.

Mar 13 1987 (Jörmungandr II) - Geneva, Switzerland

March 13, 1987

In their second appearance the snake coils were roughly 1 foot in diameter, swirling at a noticeably faster speed. Jörmungandr itself was roughly 15 meters in diameter. was Contact with it would be roughly the same effect as the first time but followed shortly by death as victims who came in contact seemed to be afflicted by various illnesses and ailments, such as extremely rapidly advancing cancer, rapidly oncoming prion diseases and etcetera. Victims would survive for several minutes, but would be driven insane by their variety of illnesses, lashing out wildly at nearby people. Some of those nearby developed rapid physical ailments such as cancer and osteoporosis and more exotic illnesses. Some however developed seemingly no physical ailments. Some simply became increasingly mad, lashing out at their fellows or working in conjunction with the snake. Roughly 1/3 of the people were seemingly unaffected at all, maybe with minor personality changes. Many of those seemingly unchanged were later discovered to have developed various complexes, mostly trending towards sociopathic and psychopathic tendencies. Many became serial killers and villains of worsening repute. The city became a hub for murder, and at times afterwards reached some of the highest homicide rates, especially for capes in the world. This eventually died down. The local lake had massive algal growths and die-offs over time, resulting in it growing shallower and life in it dying off in droves. eventually it became so polluted with chemicals from these algal growths that it essentially became a toxic pool, poisoning the area around it.

Apr 9 1988 (Jörmungandr III) - Boston, United States

April 9, 1988

In their third appearance the serpents were roughly 2 feet in diameter, with Jörmungandr approaching 25 meters in diameter. its coils begin to easily shred and rend even brute-rated capes on touch. Those approaching within 20 meters die shortly of rapidly advancing ailments or quickly succumbing to its mental ailments, working for Jörmungandr or simply going insane. It is notable that this time the ailments seemed to be generally targeting the weaknesses of the target. Brute-rated capes tended to have more mental ailments as a trend while thinkers and those with more resilient minds tended towards physical ailments. The spread of sociopathic ailments seemed to target random people but due to recognition of the issue from last time, it was more effectively treated and dealt with, resulting in less overall long-term issues in terms of people. The local environment was still devastated though, though not to the extent of other incidents due to more efficient and effective techniques to deal with the Endbringer.

Nov 15 1989 (Jörmungandr IV) - Leningrad, Russian SFSR

November 15, 1989

1989 saw the death of the beast, heroes and villains had rallied together, Heimdall himself even stepped in to battle the creature near the end and it was slain.

In their fourth and final appearance, each individual snake was roughly a meter in diameter with the endbringer nearing 50 meters in diameter in total. While no susceptible capes entered into melee, Jörmungandr was observed drilling into the ground and through the bedrock with ease, so its shredding capabilities were notably powerful. Due to highly effective tactics from coordinating teams, groups of capes were rotated out so they could not stay with enough time to develop significant ailments, except for those that were able to resist its abilities. However the environment was effectively ruined, massive grass die-offs and devastation of local wildlife. Many people died. Notable was massive spikes in rates of depression and other such long-term mental decline in the area. Rates of helpfulness and kindness in local populations and in the capes that attended the fight dropped markedly, almost as if the society and their minds were subtly poisoned. However Jörmungandr was dispatched fairly quickly, and more long-term damage was not done.

Set

The second Endbringer to appear, Set (case file PRT-SPEC-0049) appeared in an area near the former mines, kicking up enough wind to categorize as a C2 hurricane. The dug up particulate was then put to work, blasting out more and more material and grinding it finer and finer. Once he had gathered enough material, he approached the main town, carving a swath of sand-blasted destruction. All the buildings destroyed contributed to the growing storm as he walked through the town. Eventually, he was driven off, vanishing into the storm and wind, but not at a low cost. Many people had been killed, either by falling debris or by being sandblasted and worn to nothing. The second time, he appeared in Hungary, seemingly headed to the historic city of Budapest. Intent on not allowing a place with such a legacy be destroyed, any shaker with a potentially usable power was put to work. Eventually, he was put down and a sigh of relief that a scourging power like his would no longer be as worrisome.

Appearance: Set, true to his name, was a 20-foot long black animal amalgamated of several different species. He had the general shape of a jackal, but with the long ears distinctive of a fennec fox. He also had claws similar to a lion, along with a mane.

Power: Set's main power is intense aerokinesis. Able to generate winds measured up to category 2 hurricane levels, he would take anything trapped inside and grind it against other things trapped and in the area, turning it into fine sand. With this, he was able to sandblast and wear away buildings in a matter of seconds, the strongest building turned to sand and metal supports. Given the variable power documented from Sarathiel's and Sati's long runs, he is theorized to have had an upper threshold of a storm 100 miles wide, with possibly even stronger winds.

Jul 4 1992 (Set I) - Ashton, Washington

Set appears, decimates the town, eventually driven off. Heavier than expected losses as a result of improper gear.

Jun 28 1993 (Set II) - Budapest, Hungary

Set appears, swift response. Small casualties, handful of deaths. Set is killed in the battle.

Sarathiel

Case File: PRT-SPEC-0061

The third Endbringer to make an appearance, appeared with fanfare in Cape Town on May 15th, 1994 at a local Christian chapel. He was accepted as a real Angel and the locals named him as such. It took three days for people started to notice that cape town was going dark. The crusade was stopped and quarantined by the South African government, but the city was lost. He then appeared once every year for six years. He was met with varying degrees of success until he was secured permanently in Tasmania, 1999.

Appearance: Sarathiel, eyewitnesses describe, look like the most perfect human to have ever lived with a 30-foot wingspan. He wears a white linen cloak and gleaming silver armor, carrying a long sword at his side. No one who has seen his full face ever really recovered from the master power’s control over them. But his eyes are said to be golden. He appears in an area, it is theorized, by opening a dimension door, or some other means of teleportation. Whenever he arrives, he seeks out the nearest religious meeting place to start his recruitment. When driven off, he starts to weep, before a blinding bright light comes off him before he disappears. All digital media seems to malfunction in his presence, leading to lack of video recording.

Abilities: Sarathiel is a master of swordplay, can fly at fifty miles per hour, and is able to blind his enemies with a flash of light. His main power is a high level, semi-permanent mind control in the area around him. The area grows in diameter the longer he stays in an area, capping out at one hundred miles. Everyone who falls victim to his power, roughly seventy percent of the population, joins his “Crusade”. The converted gain basic abilities with ranged and melee weapons. Everyone who joins is sworn to follow Sarathiel’s commands, the largest being, collect non-believers for conversion. Those people are brought before the Archangel to look upon his face. This works one hundred percent of the time. Those who fight back, insult Sarathiel, or try to run will be put to the sword. Once the area Sarathiel starts in is nearly all converted, his Crusade goes on the march to the next large population center. Once he flees, everyone under his control stops the crusade within a week, but they are usually permanently altered to be more religious, violent, and closed minded than before. Anyone who looked upon his face will never stop. They must be put down as a mercy.

Evolution over time: In his first appearance, Sarathiel was fairly calm and didn’t move around much. He accepted defeat easily once his closest subordinates were put down. After that, he grew more and more aggressive with his crusades and his combat situations. He even got better as tactics went on, to the point where he would temporarily flee to build up a guard again. The abilities of his converted seemed to get better with time as well. When he appeared in cape town converted weren’t much better with weapons than a normal civilian, but by Tasmania they were on par with highly trained professional soldiers in multiple combat forms and tactics. The growth of his conversion radius also seemed to drastically speed up.

May 15 1994 (Sarathiel I) - Cape Town, South Africa

When Sarathiel first arrived in Cape Town he was met with open hearts and arms by the local religious population. Starting with the two hundred people directly around the chapel, by the next day he had almost half the city within his radius, by the next day the entire city was converted, hiding, or dead with the South African military capes being called in to take care of the issue. When the converted started marching, the local government opened fired on the violent zealots, and the capes started fighting the Endbringer itself. When Sarathiel was pushed back roughly one million eight hundred thousand people were either dead or forced to convert, with only half a million being able to recover. After this, it was decided that everyone should try and take out the Endbringer without killing his thralls.

Sep 29 1995 (Sarathiel II) - Seoul, South Korea

Seoul, at the time, still belonged to South Korea. Sarathiel appeared and took over the city within 3 days. Heroes realized what was happening during the second day, but Sarathiel had hidden himself within the city. Nine and a half million people were converted, either naturally or by force. Sarathiel managed to hide for almost two weeks while they marched through South Korea, eventually breaking over the DMZ with twenty million soldiers. North Korea fiercely protected it’s country from the invading force, but the starving horde made it almost to PyeongChang when Sarathiel was found and beaten into submission. A nation, yet again torn asunder, Korea decided that the loss of a collective ten million people was too much. They brokered peace, modeled their neutrality after Switzerland, and grew stronger together.

Aug 14 1996 (Sarathiel III) - Santa Fe, New Mexico

Caught early this time, there were minimal casualties among civilians. The Protectorate labeled this as a good day. Six thousand, five hundred forty six dead. Ten capes, the Santa Fe team, were lost. Two of which were wards.

May 20 1997 (Sarathiel IV) - Helsinki, Finland

Another good day. Twenty thousand lost. It was noticed early, and though Sarathiel’s converted were becoming very capable fighters, they were unable to get enough momentum to keep going.

Oct 11 1998 (Sarathiel V) - Gibraltar

This was not one of the good days. Spreading over three different political territories and two different continents, Sarathiel started in Gibraltar, converting the full thirty thousand in half a day, his by the next day he was converting everyone all the way in Tangier and Seville. The collective governments and capes couldn’t contain the damage. It was decided that a powerful Shaker would wall off the two separate crusades while other capes searched for the Sarathiel that went to ground. They couldn’t find the Archangel in time and the looming threat of the weapon systems that had been captured led the governments and capes to sign off of glassing the area. Five million people are assumed to have died in the firebombing. Sarathiel disappeared and is assumed to have fled. The walled off area is uninhabited to this day except for certain places like the Rock, for strategic purposes.

Apr 9 1999 (Sarathiel VI) - Tasmania

Sarathiel appeared in Tasmania and two days later was confronted by a large team of capes including one hero who was able to start temporal distortion fields. A large deadly battle was fought by both sides. When Sarathiel struck Etu through the chest with his sword, she broke one of the limits on her powers, and she created a bubble frozen in time around each other. They will never wither, change, or move again. There is a memorial park built around the time field, with a circle of trees surrounding the pair.

Phoenix

Case File: PRT-SPEC-0087

Sati

Case File: PRT-SPEC-0093

Mnemosyne

Case File: PRT-SPEC-0153

Atcen

Case File: PRT-SPEC-0172

Aug 21 2012 (Atcen I) - Hong Kong

August 21, 2012

Dec 11 2013 (Atcen II) - Shanghai, China

December 11, 2013

NPCs killed: Freezerburn

Jul 9 2014 (Atcen III) - Santiago, Chile

July 9, 2014

Sep 23 2015 (Atcen IV) - Havana, Cuba

September 23, 2015

Golden Calf

Case File: PRT-SPEC-0194

Endbringers have a strange way about them, their forms and powers seem to spit in the face of humanities various cultures, There are scholars who debate and theorize about this, and one that they reference in particular is 'Golden Calf' known among some religious folks as 'The Deceiver'.

Among the worlds religious, regardless of creed, there are some who believe Golden Calf, to be of a demonic persuasion, while a vocal minority liken the Endbringer to the fabled 'Anti-Christ.'

Dec 23 2016 (Golden Calf I) - Jerusalem, Israel

December 23, 2016

All Endbringer attacks seem targeted for maximum destruction of the human way of life, but few are as insidious as Golden Calf's appearance in Jerusalem.

In a city considered Holy by not one, but three of the worlds largest religions, so shortly after Hanukkah, and so shortly before Christmas, there is scarcely a worse place for this particular Endbringer to attack, with notable exceptions being perhaps the Vatican, or Mecca.

Its appearance was with great fan-fare, the cloud cover opening up, and the sunlight beaming down as it lowered seemingly from the heavens. Its appearance tailored uniquely to the sight of every unpowered human being who gazed upon it, resembling a divine being, seemingly reflecting their religious leanings, or cultural upbringings.

In moments, those of a religious persuasion had fallen under its sway, having Mastered every religiously practicing 'human' in the city, driving them to acts of worship, violence, and religious euphoria, each of them growing fleshy growths upon their body, their skin splitting open, revealing hundreds of eyes, the Endbringer seemingly gazing through those under its thrall.

Parahumans were seemingly immune to this thrall, and could actually see past the Endbringer's illusions, underneath the image of the divine, standing triumphantly surrounded by prostrate and weeping followers, stands a 30 Meter tall Minotaur, its skin resembling solid gold, hundreds of thousands of eyes the size of dinner plates cover its metallic form.

Worst of all where those driven mad by the Deceiver, bombarded by religious visions, many of the civilians under its sway were made to trigger, becoming something wholly unique from a traditional parahuman, resembling golden-skinned versions of themselves, and dubbed Nephilim These powered-thralls would speak in unison regardless of distance from one another, speaking praises of the Endbringer, and directing the human thralls to better defile eachother, and the city in the name of the divine, as well as to attack those who sought to repel and kill the Endbringer.

The response to repel the Endbringer hampered less by its own impressive physical stature and durability, and more the zealous thralls both unpowered and powered defending it with their last breaths. Eventually done with the destruction it had wrought, it ascended into the heavens, disappearing all together via some form of stranger or mover ability. Those under its thrall who were unpowered seemingly reverted with only the addition of now closed eyes littering their forms. The Nephilim either being put down or disappearing under mysterious circumstances.

Nov 11 2017 (Golden Calf II) - Kingston, Jamaica

November 11, 2017

The next year the Golden Calf approached from the sea, along side a number of Nephilem from the year prior. Among the Nephilem were a powerful Hydrokinetic, and a powerful Telekinetic, who reenacted a bastardized version of Moses parting the red sea (in this case the bay)

Two-Thirds of its thralls worshiping it with vile acts in the city center, enacting violence and debauchery upon those not under its sway, while the other One-Third rounded up non-believers and ushered them to the bottom of the parted bay, where they were chained together in a great heap of writhing terrified civilians.

Attempts to retrieve and rescue the prisoners were made by Endbringer response, but were successfully repelled by the Deceivers Thralls.

Meanwhile on land, the Endbringer itself was facing an uphill battle against the assembled heroes and villains of the world. Perhaps if the Endbringer had fled earlier in the fight it would not have been slain, the circumstances were in humanities favor though, and after chipping away at the beast, an especially powerful Metallokinetic dealt the final blow (See article on the Vatican Hero *'Brother Longinus, the Redeemed'*, formerly the villain *'Haystack'*.)

Not all was to be celebrated, too many lives were lost, the Nephilem either fled for the hills, or killed themselves at the loss of their Prophet, unfortunately among those that took their own lives were the two keeping the waters of the bay parted. Dooming the prisoners to be crushed beneath the weight of the ocean. Their bodies chained together, and to the ground in such a manner, that it wasn't until 2019 that they had removed and retrieved the vast majority of the bodies from beneath the waters of the tainted bay

???

Case File: PRT-SPEC-0216

Aug 12 2018 (??? I) - New York City, United States

August 12, 2018

(replace this) Geb's only attack was struck with chaos and misunderstanding as the beast tore through the Big Apple. However once forces began to coordinate it was swiftly dispatched, despite the actions of a band of truce-breakers including the Ashton villain Nero.

Famine

A large pinecone-like creature, with eight legs and spikes, surrounded by a dense cloud of rabid locusts. Case File: PRT-SPEC-0225

Aug 3 2019 (Famine I) - Chibombo, Zambia

August 3, 2019

Famine's first attack was the African city of Chibombo, and lengthy response times resulted in a horrifying amount of the local population being reduced to picked-clean bones. It was beaten away but not defeated.

It's believed the creature's target was a previously-uncharted deposit of uranium found underneath the outskirts of the city.

Player characters killed: Kaiju, Starving Artist

Dec 23 2020 (Famine II) - Almaty, Kazakh Republic

In the center of the city, it burst out of the earth in am explosion of rock and soil. A huge, acorn-shaped...cocoon? Even as people ran and the local parahumans gathered together, they knew it was different now. It opens, like a flower blooming, releasing the swarm within. Insects the size of sedans, bristling with razor-sharp mandibles that could rend through concrete walls in a single destructive bite. Buildings, tree trunks, cars, people... it was all the same to the swarm. Swallowed whole and carried back to the hive.

Despite the best efforts of those few who fought and died, it was an unmitigated loss, among the worst faced by humanity. The Soviets had refused outside help, and by the time domestic reinforcements arrived, the locals had perished along with their information, and the petals had closed once more. Where once a thriving city had once lay, now only skeletal husks of concrete stood. Picked so clean that now, a year later, the ruins are still free of vermin...not even the cockroaches could find life there.

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