Moloch Tartarus
Moloch Tartarus, First of the New Dragons
Moloch Tartarus, First of the New Dragons
Moloch Tartarus
Player: @TalenLee
Origin: Magic
Archetype: Defender
Security Level: 7
Personal Data
Real Name: Lachlan Shepherd
Known Aliases: Moloch, Mol
Species: Homo Sapiens and Draco Nobilis
Gender: Male
Age: Unclear
Height: 6'2"
Weight: 145kg
Hair Colour: Bottle green
Eye Colour: Smokey orange
Biographical Data
Nationality: Australian
Occupation: Senior student
Place of Birth: Adelaide, South Australia
Base of Operations: Paragon City
Marital Status: In a sexual relationship with Sahbra
Known Relatives: None
Known Powers
Manipulation of cthonic, dark magics
Known Abilities
None of note
Equipment
None of note
No further notes.

Running hot.

Lachlan Shepherd, formerly of the Canberra Arcane Concepts Lab and now of Project Corona, is fast trying to make a name for himself in Paragon. Wearing the brandname of Project Corona proudly, he seeks to make life better and more easy for all, especially his fellow heroes. Perhaps due to his slow adaptation to human mindsets and sensibilities, the magically transformed lizard doesn't think of his reduced position in society as an Inhuman Citizen.

Lachlan is, however, cocky and showy. Perhaps a little girl-crazy as well, the youth takes to big tasks with eager enthusiasm, and loves to help out those who can use his help. Perhaps best defined by his irrepressible nature, Lachlan is continuing to make a good public face for Project Corona.

Moloch Tartarus is a Dark/Dark defender (because you can never have too many defenders), played by Talen Lee, and a member of the Project Corona Supergroup.

Moloch was originally Moloch Horridus, a Spines/Regeneration Scrapper, whose original derivation was after hearing about the area affect damage and herding/farming capability of Spines as a Scrapper. Operating on my original (shaky) understanding of how Project Corona mechanics impacted gameplay, I took him up to level 7, and used him as a 'patron' for the Hollows-bound Project Corona members. He demonstrated a remarkable ability to burn through large groups of outcasts and Frostfire, but I lost my enthusiasm for playing him sometime around level 15 or so. Part of it was awkwardness around his relationships with other Project Corona members, and the other part was that he, as a scrapper, just failed to interest me over much. I have found more and more that if my only solution to a hard target is to hit it really hard, or go and recruit a controller or defender, then I get bored very easily. I'd rather recruit damage dealers for assistance, since there are more of them, and they tend to be grateful for the assistance.

I rebuilt him upon getting the Zealous badge in an attempt to reinvigorate my interest in the character, as a Fire/Energy blaster, and while I found the Energy Manipulation secondary somewhat appealing, it was more for its melee power than its ranged power. At that point, the point of the character shifted, as he had evolved into more of a Dragon than a lizard - because the wings looked awesome.

After getting the blaster to level 6, and realising I was bored stiff with playing him already, I rebuilt him once more as a Dark/Dark Defender, knowing that I know how to play such a beast, and knowing that in an environment like Project Corona, the area affect damage and control powers will keep me entertained, and allies will invariably love the debuffing effects I can grant. In this regard, he's ultimately a little like Knight Rain and Fatal Harmonic - a single teammate who grotesquely improves the offensive capability of a team without requiring any real change in tactics on their part.

Character-wise, Moloch initially draws inspiration from the whole gamut of cocky, competitive, and generally girl-crazy heroes with something to prove, such as Arsenal from Outsiders. In his reincarnation, he's much more of a mysticist, with more of keen talent for burning through obfuscation. The characters with whom he has the most in common would probably be Deadpool and Nightwing - just not the Nightwing paralysed by existential angst.

There is also a strong echo of the story of the Ugly Duckling in Moloch's tale.

Affiliations

Moloch has very little in the way of friends outside of Project Corona. His attempts at getting to know people in Pocket D tend to just attract the attention of insane villainous thrillseekers who think his ability to spit blood from his eyes is really cool. It is cool, but that doesn't mean he likes being treated like a party trick dispenser.

Along with his jocular relationship with Laurel, he has a quiet relationship with Knight Rain, where Rain is the voice of Moloch's better angels; typically speaking, Moloch goes to Rain for advice, knowing that Rain will kick his ass about whatever thing it is that has Rain worried.

More recently, and perhaps as a result of his recent transfiguration, Moloch has established a physical relationship with Sahbra, who he now teasingly refers to as his "boyfriend", in deference to her vastly higher security clearance. He can typically be found in his downtime hanging around the Quad with her.

Personality

Moloch, when he first arrived in Paragon, started out as pretty much any teenager - brash, arrogant and convinced the world revolved around himself. He would throw himself into combat recklessly, convinced that he was indestructible, and he wasn't regularly proven to be wrong. This of course, led to more than a little egotism and competitiveness, and when he found himself being outstripped by other members of the Project - especially Sahbra - he found himself realizing how much of himself was based around that competitive drive.

Since his transfiguration, however, Moloch has shown to be confident, self-assured, and almost cryptic in his dealings with others. He still verbally jousts with Laurel and is still just as acidic as always - but there is no longer the frantic sense of self-proving that there was in his old manners.

Powers

Moloch, since his transfiguration, has found himself able to tap an ancient well of cthonic dragon magic, which gives him simultaneously a source of bleak, midnight energies with which to assault his enemies, and a mantle of terrifying power he can use to protect his allies. These powers are, as yet, not entirely understood to him; instead, he feels as a swimmer in an underground sea, unsure of how deep the waters go, and ever-so-subtly afraid to find out.

Abilities

Placeholder

Equipment

Nothing of note.

Weaknesses and Limitations

Moloch's regenerative abilities were, in fact, just part of his body's process for the transformation. What he thought of as his lizard metabolism reacting to a mammal diet and physiognomy was in fact his draconic form gathering the strength to grow. What this means is, now past that gigantic spike of metabolic action, he's much more 'normal' in his ability to take damage.

Further, Moloch is still sensitive to light and wears sunglasses, even indoors.

Character History

Moloch came to the city several years ago, adopted by Dr. Shepherd after his awakening in Canberra. He was found by the project when a medical procedure designed to awaken his human comatose form resulted in a lizardy apotheosis, and the declaration of the technique a failure. Prior to this point, Moloch had been in a Medical Trust - that he had a benefactor rendered anonymous by law, whose finances were paying for the boy's medical bills.

After an initial, and ham-fisted attempt at finding his benefactor, Moloch was approached by one of the Project Corona's "Seekers", who explained the offer from the Project. In exchange for his service to the Project, the Seeker promised he would seek out as much information as he could regarding Moloch's benefactor, and potentially discover exactly where Moloch had come from before his coma.

Initial Heroism

He was for a time an aggressive, street-sweeper, but his cockiness and his arrogance began to grate on himself as he realized how he was functionally falling behind his competition. Being competitive and driven is well and good, but when you try your hardest and can't succeed, it tends to break the rhythm. When Laurel overtook him in security clearance, it was too much for Moloch, and he began to frantically train.

After an incident where, seeking to drive himself to higher tiers of power quickly, Moloch attempted to engage a Paladin on his own, he realized just how far out of his grasp solitary strength was, and how Sahbra's meteoric rise to power had not been through some greater desire, nor out of an unethical method - it was simply her cooperation with her friends and a desire to do greater good in the world.

Moloch took this to heart and began to fall into a depression, feeling that his own attempts at establishing friendships were much more about pushing people away than gathering them together. It was at this time that Knight Rain found him, and forcibly pointed out to the boy that nobody was keeping him from changing - and that if he knew what he wanted, it was the depth of folly to simply ignore it.

The Long Walk

Following this, Moloch, deciding he needed to clear his head, went on another Long Walk, as he had been taught in his youth, following one of the few memories of his upbringing. The Long Walk in this case involved a plane flight back to Australia, where he sojourned into the desert to indulge in an ascetic journey. Whilst on this journey in the desert, with a backpack slung with a water pack and no food, he fell into a deep torpor, falling to the sand and spending perhaps as long as a week unconscious.

It was in this time that Moloch's body completed the rite that the doctor had postponed - he steadily unravelled at the edges and saw, in his mind's eye, in the fitful dreams of the ebon sleeper, the vast yawning history of Dragons, of creatures that may have only ever existed in people's minds, but who despite it had ancient histories, magic and treasures, veritable empires - a place where all that was powerful and noble found a vessel.

Moloch came to and left the desert, knowing he had re-found his centre.

Other Notes

Nothing of note.

Trivia

  • There is nothing trivial about a dragon.
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