| Custodi Animae | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Custodi Animae | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Custodi Animae or simply called the Guardian in more common nomenclature is the specific result of binding the Shard of the Phoenix to someone with an Extraordinary Fate. In this particular case, Lance Thomas was joined sometime in the early 21st century by his wife of the time, Kylaria, who was herself the physical host and manifestation of the phoenix, and its spirit Vitae. While Kylaria herself did not realize what would happen when she gave the shard to Lance Thomas and simply wanted them to never part even in consecutive lifetimes.
The shard's power gives Lance eternal incarnations of himself, each time he returns to a new life time he is destained to some extraordinary purpose but will retain some amount of familiarity with his previous lifetimes, in this way the future incarnation of Lance Thomas also possesses this alternative form, as would any other incarnation of his soul throughout time.
Female Variant
In the particular case of Lisa Thomson, who went through a similar experience of obtaining and using a phoenix shard, the Guardian of Souls is feminine rather than masculine. However, none of the powers or abilities are impacted by this change. As an additional note, the two entities do not know of each other and operate separately. For abilities and powers, gender is irrelevant to the description.
As an OOC Note, the female variant is meant to behave as just another version of Lance Thomas in any case. That is to say she has access to the same abilities and powers that he does but the are never meant to be played at the same time. From a storytelling perspective, they should not be involved in the same story. While this may not make sense, we simply use the fudge to accomplish it. Though they are two separate characters if forced to be in the same place at the same time, and both qualify when transformed as the Guardian of Souls, but would each think they are the true or only one.
Transformation
The transformation to this form is triggered through focusing all of his memories of love and life into a tightly focused power of the mind, while focused he can then call upon the phoenix fire and its life essence and thus transform himself into this form. He gains wings made of pure phoenix fire, his skin, hair, and eyes similarly ignite into the same type of eternal flames and those flames do not harm him.
Special Abilities
While he retains all of the abilities he possesses normally, he is also granted the following abilities due to this new form.
- Invulnerability to Fire
- Control of Elemental Fire
- Healing Self and Others
- Cure Disease
- Flight
- Calling Upon the Dead
- Souls of those who have died, which were close to him, can be called forward to the material plane temporarily as ghosts and even granted substance for a time.
- Call Upon Nature
- The natural nearby life will respond to him, he can speak to nature itself and request that it take action on his behalf, he cannot control it however.
- Walk the Path of Eternity
- He can see into the past lives of others, and recall past memories to the present person, can also cause a person to relive a past life's memories as if they experienced them first hand.
- Preservation of Life
- If present at the moment of death, he can prevent that death and return the soul to the body.
- Protection of Souls
- He can, in this form, protect a soul from being captures and even hold it himself in a protected state allowing it to move onto the next realm unmolested.
- Cleansing Flames
- Sometimes life can only flourish if what opposes it is destroyed, he may use the purity of flame to destroy that which opposes life.
Consequences
Calling forth enough power to transform and maintain this form is most costly to the mind. Invoking it means facing the darker side of all things pleasant, and inevitably the loss of what one has loved before, as no love can truly be recognized and appreciated until it is lost. The loss of loved ones makes their memories more potent and thus of a caliber where they can power and manifest the transformation. In transforming, the person must face the darkness which created such shining light and master it, putting it into the proper balance and keeping it there. This is easiest to do for short periods of time and the longer this form is maintained the more precarious that balance becomes. Once the balance is lost between light and dark, the form evaporates and inevitably leaves a residue of the darkest depths of sadness in its wake. This can at times be wholly debilitating, as anything strong enough to manifest the transformation of light must be paid for and balanced out by living through the darkness at its conclusion.