Name: Pendulum
Author: RuwinReborn
Status: Public
Colors:
Classification: Male Planeswalker of unknown race
Appears in: Refer to
the wiki page or the
Index thread for a full list of works.
Physical DescriptionPendulum is an utterly unique creature - as far as he knows. His skin is a pale blue, and though it is thin enough to see several major arteries through, it is extraordinarily tough and resistant to damage. He has four arms, each ending into three long, slender digits - two fingers and a thumb. His second pair of arms extends from behind him, relying on the musculature of his spinal column for much of their leverage. He has no legs, and instead, has a single, thick trunk that extends into a rather long tail. The tail ends in a thick, rounded tip. From the top of his head to the tip of his tail, Pendulum is about eleven feet long, though he usually holds himself at about five feet tall.
Possibly the most alien thing about Pendulum is his face. It is completely smooth and devoid of definition or protrusions. His four eyes are sunk into his skull, with two large ones set beneath the two smaller ones. Tiny indents on the back of his head serve as his ears. He had no nose or nostrils, and his mouth is a horrifying, circular, lipless maw of jagged and flesh musculature. His tongue - such as it is - general resides deep within his gullet, out of sight. When extended, it has a maximum reach of nearly six feet, not including the secondary tendrils hidden within it.
His voice is deep and wet, due to the fact that he mimics most languages using flexible flesh deep within his gullet. He has four gill flaps on either side of his neck which are capable of being sealed at a moments notice.
Background and PersonalityPendulum's earliest memory is one of pain.
The subject of many a torturous experiment, Pendulum is not certain from where he comes from nor what he truly is. He has dozen of hypotheses, of course, but none more substantial than "A heavily mutated merfolk, perhaps." or "Some sort of aquatic Vedalken." Truly, given what little he knows of his past, it could easily be both.
He remembers only blinding pain and contradictory thoughts for the first part of his existence. He believes someone erased his memory of his earlier life, and he also believes he is better off without it. He is uncertain if he could ever go back to being the person he was before - whoever that was. He is uncertain anyone would even recognize him, and by now, it has been many decades since he first escaped his torture. Most likely, those who had known him are dead.
All he knows is that, at first, there were dozens of voices warring for dominance in his head. Some were feral and savage, others were quiet and timid, but one was cold, strong like iron, and logical. Eventually, this voice suppressed all the others, and Pendulum can only assume this is the personality he has since taken as his own. But once the voices had ceased, and the strong, iron voice of logic dominated, his spark flared in the relief of the silence that followed, and he found himself deep in the unfathomable blackness of some faraway ocean.
He is unsure how long he floated in that endless darkness, but the stillness of it soothed him. He could feel the currents, hear the deep bass of undersea life all about him. He reveled in it. Eventually, his body hit the ocean floor, and it was there, with his perfect vision in the deep of the ocean, he found a silver, metal disc, attached to a long, metal chain.
He scooped it up, almost unthinkingly, and it swung with a weight belying its size. The first word he ever remembers consciously thinking sprang unbidden into his mind.
"Pendulum."
He took the metal disc, fascinated by the power he could feel radiating from it, and resolved, then, to understand this thing. To understand all things. The ocean, the life within, the pendulum, and himself. Through careful experimentation, he discovered the limits and abilities of this body he does not remember, and the quick, cold logic of this mind he never had. Armed with an insatiable appetite for knowledge, tempered by his abhorrence of torture and reverence for all living things, he moves from plane to plane, studying living creatures and improving upon their deficiencies. From healing the permanently crippled and terminally ill, he hopes to unlock a perfect marriage of bodily efficiency and mental acuity. Until then, he is willing to silently prod life in a direction that most benefits those who live it.
Often, however, he laments his position as a mutant pariah, and wonders why he possesses the instincts of a more social creature.
AbilitiesPendulum's namesake gives him the ability to speed up, slow down, and even stop time in a small area, though he cannot reverse it. Anything caught within the area of this time manipulation field is effects, though the area is small and is difficult to expand. It takes an absurd amount of concentration and power for Pendulum to speed up time using the pendulum, and so uses that function infrequently.
Pendulum has discovered little about the origin of his pendulum since he has found it, because few seem to know anything about a mysterious metal disc that ended up on the ocean floor. Pendulum suspects it was some sort of resonance with the artifact that caused him to blindly 'walk towards it in the first place. Pendulum is not a big believer in coincidence.
His skin is highly resistant to pressure, and rather sturdy for how thin it appears overall. His arms are relatively weak, more suited for delicate work, though his tail makes him a powerful swimmer if a ponderous land-dweller. Of all his anatomy, most fascinating is his tongue.
When extended, the tongue splits apart to reveal dozens of writhing, red tendrils. When these tendrils come into contact with a sentient being, it allows Pendulum to transfer a portion of his consciousness into that being. The more intimate the contact, the more consciousness he can transfer. This is useful when he needs to locate, isolate, and neutralize difficult genetic deformities or other troublesome health issues.
He is capable of modifying his body in permanent, if subtle, ways. Something about his genetic codes makes instantaneous evolution possible, though it requires concentration on his part. This can be used to increase giving him echolocation, the ability to sense movement through vibrations in the ground, the ability to see infrared and ultraviolet light, or even magnetic and electrical fields. He has the limited ability to shape-shift, but dislikes the feeling he gets when he does so. He tends to remain in his current form.
When summoning creatures (which is not often for combat, but for observation), they tend to be homunculus or other strange creature of the deep ocean or deep jungle. They are almost guaranteed to be venomous.
CardPendulumPlaneswalker - Pendulum
: Tap a permanent you control and a permanent you don't control. Those permanents don't untap during their controller's next untap step.
: Tap an untapped creature you control. Draw four cards.
: You gain an emblem with "Opponents can cast spells and activate abilities only at any time they could cast a sorcery."