Conscious Gun – Milo carries a handgun that he’s convinced is possessed, but with what, he’s not so certain. The weapon not only converses with him, but whether or not it’s loaded is up to it, with Milo being reduced to persuading, demanding, or begging by turns if he wants to have a useable firearm. Having something to talk to at all times is good for Milo, too.

Seelekrieg – While putting a (possibly) loaded gun to one’s head and pulling the trigger is typically a bad idea, in Milo’s case doing such is really calling for backup. From the exit wound springs Seele, the spirit and personification of Milo’s gun, given life by the mixture of the black blood, the nature of Seele’s ammunition, and Milo’s own desire to escape from the conflict he’s trapped inside.

Black Blood - Milo’s body has been changed, and this is most apparent when one cuts him. Any open wound, rather than blood, exudes a thorny set of vines, seemingly made of black ink. The vines speed up his healing.

Doors to Everywhere – The ability to travel through portals (doors, windows, etc.) to the Other; and from the Other back to any other portal.

Hardened – Milo is difficult to faze, having spent years tracking and murdering. Some of them could be said to have deserved it, but Milo’s numbed conscience has also spread to other portions of him, and he’s able to generally evade the emotional consequences of his actions.

True Sight – Milo’s time spent in the Other warped his senses, forcing him to perceive a world that he, previously, had no knowledge of the existence of. On the bright side, he sees through illusions and visible lies (fake smiles, masks, lies in writing).

Soul-Eater – Milo is able to consume the souls of those he kills, but in order to do so he must devour the heart. Doing so gives him access to their personalities and memories.

Sanity Slippage – Milo’s starting to lose it, a fact that he thinks he’s aware of, with his conversations with his gun, but that’s not what causes him to be losing his mind. He’s having difficulty differentiating between dreams and reality, and some of his actions only make sense in the dreamworld his mind is retreating into more and more frequently. Most apparent is his way of “waking up”, the activation of Seelekrieg.

Reckless Immortal – Milo expects to survive whatever comes his way, in part because of his frequent belief that the times he fights monsters infused with the power of another plane of existence are nothing more than terrible nightmares. As a fight drags on, and his understanding of what’s real and not gets worse, he’s liable to fight in a more reckless fashion.

Other Memory – Milo’s memories of the Other can cause him to freeze up, rendering him vulnerable. Other times, the episodes brought on by the trauma cause him to breakdown into screaming, or weeping, generally giving away his position.

Weak – In a contest of strength, Milo will generally lose.

Milo’s story began before he himself began. Very early on, with an encounter of the supernatural variety. A man that he would never know would, for his own selfish ends, offer up his firstborn child to be touched by the terrible void between realities. His name was chosen from that day forward. He would be named Kadish, a piece of a language from the foul tongue born of things that can only be described as other. Kadish, a fragment of the word that would suggest knowledge. A thing that Milo would long to live without.

The man offered up his firstborn child, and as soon as he knew that the child was likely to be, he left to claim the due that was promised to him, and then he never returned. His mother died shortly before he could reach the age of ten, and then Milo spent three years moving from foster home to orphanage and back again. On the thirteenth year, Milo walked out of sight of one of the caretakers and was never seen again.

Or that’s what was often said. In truth, Milo was seen, quite often, by the strange beings that had snatched him up as part of the contract that preceded his life. What occurred, in a place whose name alone fills the listener with a soul-crushing sensation of dread, Milo holds dear to his identity, and yet he isn’t sure of whatever details exist.

Milo emerged, then, but he wasn’t human, anymore. He was changed, given a terrible purpose. The young adult had undergone experiences that no human should have laid claim to. Further attempts to live a normal life were thwarted when the city around him seemed to plunge into chaos as several seemingly supernatural entities took to the streets, spreading death and destruction. Milo saw what the others did not: their true forms.

In spite of his initial beliefs to the contrary, Milo wasn’t the only one who was aware of the truth. There was another who made Milo an offer: assist him in cleansing the world of each and every one of those that had been granted such powers, and then be free of them himself. Milo agreed, readily, hoping to find a normal life.

The first time that Milo killed, he wasn’t sure he could keep up his end of the bargain he had made. The second time, he felt guilty. Somewhere along the line, Milo’s developed the ability to avoid seeing the faces his hands had erased. He came to the wRHG looking for more on his list.

“Seele, you idiot! You’ve just given away our position!” a voice raged. There was no response that Milo could hear, but the voice started again as if there had been. “I don’t care what I said in the past, we’re not marking a target for our friends right now. They’re all dead! It’s just us, and we have to kill this guy before he kills us, except now he knows where we are!”

A slithering monstrosity of flesh and mucus slithered along the forest floor, homing in on the source of the gunshots. Venomous needles burst out, and Milo was quick to shield himself with the tree nearest to him. The whole plan had gone to hell. Milo and a pack of fellow hunters were going to take out this thing, and then be on their way. And here he was, desperately trying to figure a way out of the mess he had found himself in.

Calm down! The voice from his gun screamed back at him. We’ve already exposed its heart, you just need to aim like a man who doesn’t want to stitch an outline around his target!

“I’m trying to aim. Shut up. Just shut—” Milo cut himself off as he leaned out of his cover to fire. Click, click, click. No bullets. “Come on! Don’t do this right now. Are you trying to get me killed?”

Say you’re sorry.

“For what? I’m just here trying to get this job do—“

Say it.

“Fine, fine! I’m sorry, alright?”

That’s better.

Two shots in quick succession tore through the monster’s heart, and as its grotesque form shuddered, Milo looked down to see that he’d been hit. With a practiced motion, he tore the needles out of his arm. Hooked barbs ripped some of the flesh off, and Milo looked down at the bleeding wounds, as if surprised at the rush of pain.

Black blood oozed out, and began to wrap around the wound. It wasn’t long before the bleeding was stopped entirely. The flow was stemmed by the makeshift bandage of thorns. Pain muddied his thinking, and as he looked at the inky vines, he thought he saw names where leaves would have been.

Seele, as a gun, manifests in whatever handgun form she wishes when Milo draws the weapon from the holster at his hip. When resting, only enough of her to be drawn is formed.

When Seelekrieg is initiated, Seele's form resembles a young woman. Her movements resemble a bullet ricocheting, with speed to match it. There is a long trail, the same blue-white of her body.

Seele is capable of firing the gun that usually hosts her indefinitely, and she herself is supernaturally tough, capable of breaking through medium armor with her hands.

Seele is, above all else, capricious.

The Toolbox Condundrum. Wonder what thiat is? Well, I'll tell you.

Imagine a toolbox. Bear with me here. No- put the giant paws away, I mean the other kind of bear. Yeah.

A toolbox. A metal box holding a bunch of different tools. Various screwdrivers, a saw maybe. Sandpaper. Glue gun. That sorta thing. When you come across something that needs tooling, you just reach in, grab the perfect tool made for it, and tool that sunuvabitch. Your toolbox lets you tool anything.


And then there's multitools. A swiss army knife. Holds a flat scredriver head, some knives, corkscrew, etc. Now, it's not as full as a toolbox, but it's neat, it's classy and it's a single tool, not multiple tools for seperate individual things. It's one thing you can use that covers the ground of many things, but not all things.


You may have caught on to what I'm talking about. If not, now's the time for me to break subtlty. Character powerS.


If your character has five different powers then something's wrong. You've read my Primary, Secondary and Physical power part, haven't you? It's up there. Above this one. Well, some people like to give their characters more than one primary power. They like to have powers that cover all things, or near enough all. They're toolboxes. They're a mess, a clutter of powers just thrown together with some weak structure that could only stand up in the writer's mind, where physics don't apply and the points don't matter.

Thing is about fighting a toolbox is that it's gonna suck. You think you have the upper hand? nope, turns out they have a thing for that too. Honestly, the biggest excuse for this sort of thing is "omg its ok since they'll not write it all and theyll limit it for entertainment lol" no no no no no leave get out close the door and go into a door store and close all THOSE doors and then go into a glassware shop and smash all the jars since I want you to make sure nothing is a jar when you shut your goddamn doors and goddamn LEAVE ALREADY. I'm talking about characters. I'm talking about what people see when they read them. Using them is different. I'm about character potential here.

It's not fun to fight against someone who has the potential to cover all ground. Sure, they might have weaknesses (or limits if you're wanting to be a TRUE tool) but they're gonna have to dodge around all your tools to get there and it's gonna be tedious and unfun.


But. A multitool. Ahaha, I love it. If you have a bunch of stuff to deal with individual things, you lose creativity. You may create the illusion of it but really, no. Having something that you can bend and contort and can cover a range of things by itself is great. Having a secondary ability to further enhance that is great too. But remember, even if a swiss army knife is a multitool, it can't have all tools. It covers a good area, but still leaves plenty of room. And the fun is, sometimes, you fiddle around a bit and you dig your nail in and find a tool in there that you had no clue about.


Toolboxes lack creativity and can cover most possible applications. Multitools inspire creativity and cover a good portion of applications. And that is the Toolbox Conundrum.