Masks: Never Look Back: Shasti Notes and Story Record
Contents
Notes[edit]
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Bio[edit]
Shasti was born to be Ruin: principal key to nine swords pointed at the heart of Heaven. Daughter of Beleth, Lord of the 18th Hell Dimension, she was a child borne of love. Meticulously crafted, each iota of her essence impregnated with a destiny of war, and woven with strife enough be calamity. By careful design, Shasti was built to bring down the gates of Heaven – be the vanguard of Beleth’s conquering horde and see the Lord of the 18th ascend the first and final throne to become King of All.
But in creating his key-child, Beleth realised too late: she was part of his Destroyer - a thing built to tear down any wall, shatter any gate, break any bond. Shasti reflected it, and she held a measure of its power and purpose. He could not contain her.
And so Shasti defied her father with cruel affection against his crueller love. Teenage rebelliousness perhaps? A need to see the universe? Love or something stranger? Beleth did not know. But he wailed and wept and killed many in his grief, and swore – if not to get his daughter back – then to see her destiny fulfilled. Mark his words, Shasti would be wed and welded to the destroyer. And Heaven would yet fall. She was born for it…
Glossary[edit]
Tyrant Realm: artificial pocket dimension; ‘a wound in the skin of the universe’. Created by technology that rends space and twists time…or by other means that should not be contemplated. The word of a tyrant in their realm is physical law – this can bestow true immortality upon the ruler, and death in ‘base reality’ is not therefore the end of a tyrant: they will reconstitute in their realm. The larger the realm, the more powerful the tyrant.
Hell Dimension: monstrously large Tyrant Realms ruled by ancient (and famous) ‘demon lords’. The inhabitants of a Hell Dimension are rarely more than constituted ephemera – demons made manifest by the will of their lord. There can be, and often are, other inhabitants. How hospitable they find life in a Hell Dimension…varies. Most demon lords consider the affairs of base reality beneath them, and instead the Hell Dimensions frequently war with each other; seeking to subsume the realms of their rivals in a bid for ever greater power.
Heaven: largest known Tyrant Realm. Reputedly paradise for all who live there. Those few who know the way to Heaven say its gates are shut and barred and have ever been thus. Conquering Heaven would make you one of the most powerful beings in existence. IF you could conquer it. IF you could first get in…and Beleth is certainly not the first to be trying.
Shasti's nature?[edit]
(according to Samra)
"... So you see, Shasti exists as a superimposition of Beleth's biological offspring and the Tyrant-kaiju, as well as several arcane pieces of machinery that my instruments refuse to record in any significant detail. That's very annoying. Anyway, part of the hyperspace shadow appears to be acting as a barrier between these forms and mediating the split. When the shadow begins to, let's just call it stretching (though it should be noted that it's more a thinning in 7-D mathematics; its 'surface area' as measured in nu-by-aleph isn't increasing at all) that's when we begin to perceive other sorts of armatures imposed over what we think of as the Beleth-offspring 'base' form. Though of course this is nothing more than a convenient measure that is most closely aligned with the vibrational frequencies of local 4-D space. It may be more useful to consider the hyperspace shadow to be 'Shasti' and the offspring-body to be an extrusion into local 4-D space -- though can't you really say that about all sophonts? Hahaha, I joke, I joke."
