The Danava Race Information Thread [FINISHED]

[LillianVeteran Member]

The Danava are noted to be a practically ancient, recurrent race who’s original members can be traced all the way back to the birth of the universe, the very first Danava likely being the creator of the demon race, Deveta. These creatures are literal manifestations of concepts that exist - effectively being ideas given personhood. They are born with the innate desire to fulfill and inflict these concepts they embody upon the existent world, however whether that be a good or bad thing is up to the individual Danava - no Danava is inherently good or evil, they and by extension their understanding of their concept is shaped by living, much like any other being born into this world.

Released By Nidhana: All unborn Danava are housed within Nidhana, all forms of beliefs, thoughts, ideas, and more accumulating within the network, growing these concepts until they are ready to be released into the material world. Usually, when a Danava is released without any apparent beckoning from other sources, they simply appear in a place related to their concept, like for example a Danava of Trees would likely spawn in a densely forested place.

Rituals: A rather common method for Danava to be born, often times mistaken for a familiar or some other lowly, controllable creature. Rituals can be used to offer something to Nidhana in order to call a Danava into being, but it’s concept and capabilities are very much dependent on what’s actually offered up to form them in the material world. Typically an item with high sentiment tied to them is the bare minimum you can use in order to birth a Danava, however such a being will likely be incredibly weak and have a lot to be desired.

If you wish to craft a more substantial Danava, you will need better sacrificial items. Usually, living creatures are a fine offering to Nidhana, but above the sacrifice of humans or other similarly sapient creatures is the best way to ensure the Danava you summon is substantial, however there is reason to be cautious, as the sacrificed being likely will greatly influence what concept comes into being. Additionally, this process will kill any beings or destroy any objects used to sacrifice, as Nidhana will take anything of them in order to apply it to the Danava.

However, it is possible to only partially form a Danava into existence, effectively bounding the concept to an existing creature or object. Even if this will not kill or destroy the sacrificial item, it will damage or encroach upon what is already present to effectively fill the gap, be it powers or one’s actual physical form. This is the only possible way to attain hybridism.

Typically this route is done either by accident, or with intent to create some sort of familiar, or even a powerful being if the right materials are given.

Organic Birth: Danava are capable of procreating and forming children not too much unlike other beings. Although, no matter what one will do, the resulting child will always be a Danava due to the otherworldly influences of the Danava parent. Nidhana typically sends concepts that are thematically similar to the parents in some way to them as an approach of further evolving such concepts, although exceptions are capable of occurring, especially depending on the kind of environment such a Danava will be born into. However, this child is capable of gaining traits of the other parent, but full on hybridism is impossible through this method of birth.

Recycling: When a Danava dies, the essence of it’s form return to Nidhana to both feed and grow the network, as well as to be grown within it again, as Danava concepts cannot be replicated - they simply are reborn. Danava never truly die, their concepts living on for as long as there is an observable universe to form and fuel these concepts. However they will not be reborn in the same manner as their previous life if they are to be released once more, effectively a brand new person when they emerge, the remnants of their previous life often forming into an Eternal Partner to act as a guide to the new life.

Nidhana is thought to have formed when existence itself sprang to life. Amidst the radical formation of the universe, it is thought due to some unknown set of conditions, a collection of reishi slowly gathered together to form what could be considered an infantile form of Nidhana. Due to this formation, the earliest processes of Nidhana began, and the first Danava were born into the universe, running off the basic instinct of most creatures - To feed, and to reproduce.

The more things that creation formed, the more concepts were formed within Nidhana’s realm, and in turn the more complex the realm’s processes became. As of now, there likely are countless Danava residing within Nidhana, but simply are in a dormant state.

In terms of the nature of Nidhana itself, it is not a sapient life form, rather it’s processes are more akin to a computer than a true, thinking creature. It is merely a vessel for Danava to grow within and at some point be born, and then return once they have perished in order for the network to consume much of the knowledge they obtained in their lives. Nidhana is the final determiner of if or not a particular concept will take shape and be released into the existent world via evaluation - typically the main reason for Danava births lie in the likeliness to influence the world, and ability to exercise and grow their concept. If the chances of their successful growth and influence appear to be too low, that particular concept simply will not be born at that given time. The apparent goal of this network seems to simply to gather information, and create even more concepts to further this exchange.

The actual form of Nidhana isn’t a person or world, but rather a vast, unseen network that heavily intermingles with where concepts appear to be most prominent in. This of course means Earth would have the densest networking out of any realm, as it is where many concepts are born and are still being created to this day, primarily, being the ever-changing plane it is.

Concepts: The Concept a Danava represents both their power, and themselves. Every Danava is born knowing what their concept is, but only through life and experiences can they truly grow to understand what this concept would mean. A Danava’s concept is shaped greatly by their life experiences, for example - let’s say that Danava of Trees grew up in a peaceful environment, often times being given kindness and little struggle. Most likely, their powerset will evolve with this peace, being able to use more pacifist-inclined abilities over trees, versus if they were in a violent environment, where they were in danger or peril, in which case their power likely would evolve with much more lethality in mind.

Danava are capable of possessing two concepts, though typically they’re concepts that are either polar opposites such as Fire and Water, or concepts that would go hand and hand, like Law and Justice. Although, as long as it is a possible matchup Nidhana can forge, the Danava likely will be able to form.

These dual concepts of course will have an influence on how they grow and develop, like for example Fire and Water may have a more conflictive existence with being opposing elements, but would learn how to use the two together as their understanding and power grows. These concepts remain together from birth until death, as Nidhana would have calculated it was a plausible matchup. Even with this, a Danava may have one concept be their dominant and therefore most used one, but for their growth they must learn about both of them.

Danava are not capable of possessing more than two concepts, as beyond that would make them too unstable, and thus Nidhana would not put such a thing into being.

The Purpose of a Danava: Ultimately, the purpose of the Danava's existence, whether they agree or not, is to feed their mother network, Nidhana. Nidhana sends out Danava with the best probable chance of surviving and accruing knowledge and experience to then eventually pass and return to Nidhana. At some point or another, the members of this race will become aware of this fact. Aside from this inevitability, a Danava's meaning in the life they currently live will drastically differ from one to another.

Relation to Each Other: On this front, apart from sharing the same "mother", Danava have no natural inclination to one another. While it is possible and absolutely expected for Danava to be capable of forming relationships with other Danava, unlike humans there is no innate natural draw to kin, or race, or otherwise.

Appearance: There is no one set appearance for a Danava. They can naturally appear as anything, but can eventually learn to change their form to something else if they so desire. However, regardless of appearance, they always will have some aspect of their concept to their appearance.

Energy & Sensing: Danava, like many other races that emerged at the time they did, are made up of and use the same energy as they. Their bodies are Reishi constructs, and they use Reiryoku, however differently than Shinigami. Their power appears to be far more reminiscent of magic spells and in the case of Atma Vatou, magical objects. In this age, any who sense a Danava will perhaps mistake them for a human with high energy levels commonly, however have a sensation of 'offness' induced by their concept. For example, a reasonably well developed Danava of Joy likely would uplift those around them by merely being in their company, or a Danava of Heat would make another feel a few degrees hotter than a few seconds ago.

Atma Vatou: Danava who have accumulated enough knowledge from learning about and exerting their concepts are capable of forming weapons and items from their energies, giving physical shape to an aspect of their concept. For example, let’s say a Danava of Pain wished to form an Atma Vatou, and they were at a sufficient enough level to where they would be capable of doing so.

They have to focus on a particular aspect of their concept as well as what to shape it as in order to create the item - in this case the Danava of Pain likely would focus on the suffering aspect of pain, pool their energies together, keep the desired form in mind, and would create for instance, a sword that would induce lasting pain in the target they stab.

A very important aspect of forming an Atma Vatou is naming it. Giving the item a name solidifies it’s existence and makes calling upon it rather easy, as naming something notes it’s significance to the user. With all of this done, the weapon or item can be called upon at any time with relative ease.

An Eternal Partner is an entity created by the culmination of a Danava’s past lives. When a Danava is recycled, it’s possible for some shards of it’s previous consciousness to remain intact, and form into a voice for the new iteration of it’s concept, or even for similar concept’s consciousnesses to come together. This is a guiding voice, regardless of how much the previous Danava managed to stay intact, acting as company for the new Danava and a way to help them get a bit of a start on learning about their concept, and guiding them to new points. Any given Danava will only have a single Eternal Partner, even if they are a dual concept, the culmination of ideas and memories forming a being who acts as a voice for that collection.

For the Eternal Partners who are far more intact and capable of readily speaking to and guiding their newer lives, it is possible for them to establish a close relationship with and even work with this new life, to the point of them being able to utilize their old selves’ knowledge and abilities to aid them in the present. While the new life’s direction may not be in the same direction as the old’s, there are inevitably going to be overlaps in some sections, as they are of the same origin.

These overlaps are identified and then used to forge these abilities from a collaborative effort between the old and new self, this new ability only able to be accessed with the cooperation and bonding of both parties. However, not all Eternal Partners will react and teach the same way, the possibility of some even being unhappy with where their new self is going very much existent. One should not always think of this being as a friend, but merely as an ally when living, but never an enemy or opposing force - in the end, the partner merely wants to fulfill the gathering of knowledge all Danava are instinctively inclined to, though they may have a different idea of how that should be than others.

Not all Danava have an Eternal Partner, and not all Danava’s consciousnesses manage to get through the recycling process unscathed, even the clearest of them inevitably missing memories and experiences of their lives.

Danava are capable of focusing their energy to form a new state of power after enough development of their concepts. Usually the thing that forms these states are specific events that set themselves as a major milestone in a Danava’s life. The form, while a more prominent physical representation of one’s concept’s growth, can also be influenced by other factors that led to the form’s creation, certain abilities forming from an event they otherwise wouldn’t have been able to form.

Single Origin

The Path of Embracing: The standard focus state for any single concept Danava, this path is characterized by one’s embracement of their concept - to accept what and who they are, and in turn blossom into a higher state of power, as a Danava who has come to this point likely would have grown and developed enough to do so. The first thing a Danava will notice upon achieving this state is a noticeable increase in their energies - it can be felt like a spike in power, paired with a boost in the strength of their abilities. Say for example a Danava of Fire achieved this path - their fire-based attacks likely would burn hotter than previous or be larger and more destructive and explosive, depending on how they achieved this path. Overall, The Path of Embracing is a notable benchmark for some Danava’s journey of shaping themselves.

The Path of Being: A very uncommon height to reach for a Danava, typically only achievable by a small handful of the race, as even the oldest and most matured of Danava may not reach this level. Danava who manage to reach this form likely have endured many a thing to challenge their existence, their will prevailing despite such a thing, and a fervent desire to keep growing, learning, living, and truly being their concept. At this point, a Danava is so in tune with their concept that every facet of their new form practically screams it - even down to their personality and actions.

The Danava will see significant boosts in their conceptual abilities, even higher than that of their previous state’s, in addition to their form and it’s abilities reaching out to affect the world itself. Back to that Danava of Fire - if they managed to transcend to this form, their bodies likely would form to be a brilliant fire, even the air around them will feel like a blistering sun, burning whatever is unfortunate enough to be too close. This form can actively reach out and affect what and who is around it merely by existing, however it is an extremely exhausting form to keep up for long given the sheer energy toll required to maintain it, so a Danava can only form this state for short periods.

Dual Origins

The Path of Uniting: While dual-origin Danava find they have a harder time achieving this height compared to their singular origin members, this feat is attainable by accepting both halves of their being, to do so and to deeply, truly understand them to the point they can be woven together into this level of power. To complement the difficulty in achieving and keeping such a form stable, the united path is thought to be stronger than that of a single origin’s power, as it is two powers weaving to become one, such a thing requiring much experiencing and understanding of how these things can link and relate to each other.

While the Danava is known to have a higher hike in potency, the stability of this form is much weaker as the Danava needs to keep both points of their energy in check, to prevent them from colliding and losing rhythm. If the Danava is able to achieve such a thing, they will be met with far more potent abilities from their halves working together.

The Path of One: An extraordinarily rare feat in comparison to it’s single counterpart - to get two concepts to work together so seamlessly that they become one is beyond uncommon, it’s almost unheard of amongst Danava, but unheard of does not mean impossible. The fact that a Danava would reach a state such as this means they have lived and learned how both facets of themselves can be together, as if they were one.

While it is a high bar to achieve in any lifetime, once achieved the Danava will attain an incredibly powerful state, both of their concepts present and behaving as if they were a single one, giving the Danava similar buffs and presence, however the power of this state is comparably higher, but at the same time far more unstable. Great discipline and control is required to keep this form in check.



Origin Embodiment

The alignment with one’s origin(s) is the most prominent indicator of a Danava’s growth. How much they understand, embody, and overall act as their concept is in turn a tell of their ability. This skill basically measures how developed in the niche of power their origin represents is - just how skilled and in-tune with their concept the Danava is.

Spoiler:

Origin Focusing

The focal point in most Danava's development is their capacity to ascend into their focus states. The formation of these states are heavily dependent on the amount of experience and understanding a Danava has of their concept. These aspects are measure through this skill.

Spoiler:

Atma Vatou

These are the items forged from a Danava’s focusing upon a particular point or idea involving their concept. While a Danava is able to create an Atma Vatou with enough competence and focus, the amount of them tends to be restricted to a sort of bracketing, as well as the fact that no two Atma Vatou can possess the same purpose - each and every one of them requires a specific source of focus. The more a Danava’s knowledge grows, the more Atma Vatou they will be capable of creating, as they will have more points to focus into a tool of their making, as well as the actual strength and usefulness of said Atma Vatou for the purpose it was created for.

Spoiler:

Eternal Partner

The past life of a Danava, typically a guiding voice in aiding their newest incarnation in learning about their concept, however in some cases, a Danava is able to make a far more meaningful connection with their past life, to the point of being able to call upon them and their prior knowledge to forge a spell. However, their capacity for a bond is what determines the amount of spells one can form with their assistance.

Spoiler:

[RawkGod of Love]

[adm]

Atma Vatou

I would say to rescale the numbers on this. Untrained makes sense, but simply moving in a linear fashion by intervals of 3 doesn't really reflect the exponential nature of growth between each skill level. I would say Beginner for this should likely allow 1 Atma Vatou, 2 at most, while Grandmaster should frankly not even be concerned with the idea of an upper limit on how many they could theoretically make.

Eternal Partner

Similar problem with Atma Vatou, the scaling here should definitely be more reflective of the fact that you are becoming hugely more powerful with each increase in skill, rather than growing at a fixed rate. Additionally, I would say that the number of spells for any skill level should probably be generally raised by a significant number, if these are intended to be something akin to Kido in their potential breadth of applications.[/adm]

[LillianVeteran Member]

Changes have been made to both;
Broadened Atma Vatou's count ranges
Changed Eternal Partner's measurements more to spell power/capability rather than spell amount.

[GammaVeteran Member]

[adm]Atma Vatou:

Untrained
Your Danava is unable to make any Atma Vatou at all. Their knowledge and understanding of their concept is far too minimal, and they have a lot to learn period before they are able to focus their energies to such an end.

Contradictory since one could have GM in Origin Embodiment or Branching and still have Untrained, consider rewording to "the process to apply their origin into the construction of an atma vatou" rather than an understanding of their Origin and maybe the same for higher ranks.[/adm]

[SageLord of the Understream]

[adm]Looks good, very well made rework. My main concern would be that there are four skill sheets, but only three seem to be relevant to a Danava at a given time, even two, so I'd like some clarity on it.

For Origin Embodiment, it references origin(s). So presumably, this category applies to both single-origin and dual-origin Danava. But for a single origin Danava, it seems like they miss out on Origin Branching? Mechanically speaking, the advantages of improving these skills is in accessing higher forms. Do Single origin Danava only have access to the Paths of Being and Embracing? Do dual-origin danava have access to Being, Embracing, Unting, and the One? For danava that just have the Path of Constants, what mechanical benefit is there in investing any effort into developing either skill? There's narrative descriptions on the value of the two skills and how they're relevant to the Danava's progression, but PH still is a mechanical site and providing those things with these skill sheets is important to observe.

In contrast, the other two skills have very clear mechanical values. Atma Vatou level increases the amount of weapons/objects, and increasing a Danava's Eternal Partner level allows for greater and wider ranges of spells.

Now, strictly speaking a danava doesn't need either an atma vatou or eternal partner, so they'd be excluded from benefiting from these categories as well, and in turn hypothetically a danava might not really have any racial skill sheet at all. However, for the atma vatou and eternal partner specifically, that's generally a non-issue in the sense that these aren't traits that are necessary for the make up of a Danava, and that a strong Danava does not require an atma vatou and eternal partner.

For other races, investment into a skill that inhibits investment into an equivalence generally means there's some trade off. i.e., accessing Volstandig is a trade off for accessing Letzt Stil for Quincy; or, Hierro-Regeneration trade off for Arrancar. But for Arrancar, they still have access to three other avenues of racial strength increases. For Quincy, there are other mechanical properties of the skills that allow them to access Letzt Stil and Volstandig respectively.

I think other properties should be added to the Origin Embodiment and Origin Branching, or if they are mutually exclusive, another racial skill should be made.[/adm]

[LillianVeteran Member]

(Realized I didn't make a post signifying that I had changed the wording of Atma Vatou's section to make it very specifically skill in tool creation rather than general knowledge so, yeah did that)

Okay so, Origin Embodiment will always be a core skill regardless of the Danava, it is meant to be your basic skill determining how developed a Danava's concept has become, as, quite literally, knowledge is power to them. It's meant to work similarly to how Zanjutsu operates with Shinigami - it's a needed measurement of typical power and development in that core aspect of knowledge gathering and formation, except that Danava have an additional path of releases that I did not feel would fit being measured the same, being of course dual concept Danava.

In my mind, dual concept Danava required a little bit more than just understanding and learning their concept given, it's two concepts in one being, you would need to figure out how to connect these two things and what they could extend to. Like, by nature, they're a little more complicated and demanding developmentally than single origin Danava, but at the same time I think it would be pretty cumbersome to have to make someone develop two racial skills just to get one release, so instead I went along with the initial idea had while we were talking about it to just attach that aspect to the diversity skill.

No, Dual-Origin only have access to dual-origin releases, by virtue of having two concepts the basis and requirements for their focus states are kind of difference, hence scaling off the diversity skill instead of the same skill as single origins.

So what I can do is probably add some more visible mechanical benefits to upgrading these, like they can maintain the state for x-increasing-amount-of posts, or abilities, or what have you.

If you have any suggestions for what I could do more mechanics-wise or feel anything else is unclear/not represented well, please let me know.

[SageLord of the Understream]

[adm]Origin Embodiment: for the description, I wanna note that it isn't until Grandmaster that the Danava is described as in totality and whole, "being" their origin. Remember, Master and Grandmaster are levels beyond all comprehension, which elevates the whatever skill to being in a realm totally impossible to other people. "Elite" is already being the top of the top, the absolute peak--100% out of 100%. To have master and grandmaster is to go beyond it.

So I'd say having the description of the Danava simply "being" their origin is more aptly put in the Elite description, and Master and Grandmaster should be noted as things beyond simply "being" their origin. Like Master could be that "who they are is what the origin becomes--rather than fulfilling every corner of what encompasses their origin, every fibre of their being is the next evolution of their origin. All that they are is passed on to the next Danava of [etc.]." And Grandmaster could be that their 'understanding' goes beyond their origin, and into being able to Embody a portion of Nidhana itself, manifested as their origin's thematic. Mostly flavour text admittedly, but in-character I think it could inspire some ideas as to what a character's evolution of their Origin Embodiment skill should look like, and an idea of what they can write out for their character when they ascend to these levels.

Origin Branching: The problem I'm seeing with this skill is that becoming a Dual-Origin Danava mechanically makes Origin Embodiment obselete--which shouldn't be the case if it's so central to a Danava. If mechanical use of Origin Embodiment is to use forms, and a Dual-Origin Danava only gains forms from a new sub-system of Origin Branching, it's pointless to invest time into the former skill as it bears no contribution.

It should probably be that Origin Branching and Origin Embodiment just occupy the same skill area, and they're switched out depending on the character. Origin Embodiment may have description on how skillful and potent a character's abilities can be, but that is actually totally and entirely dependent on how the person write's their character's abilities, which is why I wouldn't count that part of the description as "mechanical". To make more mechanical benefit you can add examples of what ability potency looks like per skill level, so that someone could write their characters abilities and rely on the skill to illustrate potency, rather than necessarily describing feats for the ability themselves. That's one of hte general benefits of investing into skill points at all--so that all on its own, it offers measures of strength to the skill that can be used and universally understood on site. This way, even without being multi-origin, there is still a reason to invest into Origin-Embodiment.

On the other hand, as a single-origin Danava, there is still no purpose to Origin Branching. I'm not sure as to how you would add mechanical benefits to it since it's necessarily for multi-origin Danava. So if you just have a single-origin Danava, you're shit out of luck and only have 3 skills at your disposal. Some characters are like that, but usually it's out of individual characters being written to either neglect one of their skills, or have some personal reason for being otherwise unable to invest into the other skills. I have no ideas here, at most I'd just recommend a quinary skill in place of Origin Branching for the single-origin danava, but that's up to you to decide what it is.[/adm]

[LillianVeteran Member]

Okay! Got around to those changes!

- Removed and wholly replaced Origin Branching with Origin Focusing (All focus states are tied to this stat now)
- Removed Path of Constants (Realized it would be a little difficult to scale and is overall kind of antithetical to the Danava's whole accumulative knowledge/experience theme)
- Rewrote some parts of Origin Embodiment
- Added some details to the Traits section to fill in some blanks I noticed

[SageLord of the Understream]

[adm]Read over the Origin Embodiment and Origin Focusing changes, and I think they're more vague of descriptions than before, but it should still work; so I'll Approve This on my end. However, because of the changes, Gamma and Rawk will need to re-check it.[/adm]

[RawkGod of Love]

[adm]Final approval from me.[/adm]