Ratatoskr

Vital Stats

• Species: Espers
• Manifestation: Caerkeeth
• Height: 10 inches
• Eyes: Green
• Special Identifiers: Data console integrated into left forearm.

Special Capabilities

Infuse Vehicle

All espers that inhabit a vehicle as their shell can bolster its abilities. These powers vary from increasing engine performance, bolstering hull integrity, adding maneuverability, etc... Ratatoskr specializes in manifesting things from nothing, and so here major role on her ship is that of a mender that keeps everything operating to specifications and repairs dangerous failures before they can have a significant effect. She can also use the dreamscape as a sort of warp conduit to move the The Wanderer from one place to another.

Manifest Surreality

Espers do not normally have the ability to make things appear from nothing, and even muses can't do some of the things Ratatoskr can. Being a being of Darkness as a base instead of Light, and having a sort of crossover conduit to a mirror dimension where Light and Darkness are inverted, she can siphon the essence of Light in its most primitive form to create new matter. She is limited primarily by her capacity to channel the energy needed and her endurance. At least in some ways, she can reject reality and substitute new parts to replace it with her own.

Waking Body

The most remarkable thing about Ratatoskr is not her ability to manifest new material from seemingly nothing but the fact she has an organic, waking world shell. She is the only esper in existence to have this property. This has great implications including her ability to use her full force in both the dreamscape and reality. She can also enter another esper's shell and bolster them with her own power. Like otherr espers, she exists in dreamspace at the same time as being in the waking world, but unlike them, her strengths are inverted. Normally, an esper's true form in the dreamscape is the most powerful form. In the case of Ratatoskr, the dreamscape version appears at the same size as her waking body, but she appears only as shadow and light in roughly the same shape as her waking body.

History

Origin of the Mother Spirit

Any sufficiently advanced piece of technology can appear to be magical. To further confound this, if enough people truly believe in something, it could become true. This latter point is usually more relevant to subconscious belief than actively trying to make something exist, but there are plenty of variants on gods and spirits that were born from the needs of mortal minds and hearts for something that could help them cope with not just their daily struggles but also the inevitable point when they come to face death.

The Keeth are a very well balanced and cooperative society that was guided by very unusual aspects of Darkness that sought to re-create some of the light that had made the rest of the universe go off kilter. When they finally took to space, they relied on their technology and each other to stay alive. However, as time passed on, some of this trust in their ship became akin to a faith than just a tradition or necessity. When once they called on Mother, the main computer, to serve them, they instead came to call on her just for conversation, to help them arrange social events, and even give them that reassurance that their home was safe. Espers are normally born of other epsers, and even the first espers are thought to have risen from a dream that evolved, but the circumstances of the people's beliefs, their ship, and their origins instead began to create a spirit of its own in the computer. An esper of Darkness and primitive light came to being in the waking world. As it became more personable, the crew treated it more like a person. Mother became an integral part of the space based Keeth society such that maintaining her systems was a great honor. The Keeth could not think of a world without her, and as her power grew, her unique aspects drew unwanted attention from elsewhere.

Escape from Fear and the Wanderer

The Fear of Helplessness, a primal essence that fueled other horrors and nightmares, came to learn about this powerful essence, and it was a clever and dangerous Fear. In its hands, it could use this power to bring Fear and Nightmares into the waking world where virtually no one could stop them. It attacked The Wanderer, but instead of killing the crew, it subjugated them ion order to use their fear and add it to its own power. The Fear rapidly took over the ship, but the crew at that point was ready to sacrifice themselves for the ship, and so the first mate ran to the nursery where cloning and genetic modification was possible. He took from that place the last Xolos, a egg like device that could create any known Keeth species or even bring about new ones. It was also the only thing handy that could contain the essence of Mother.

A magic mirror, found by the Keeth and brought in as an artifact, has the ability to bridge the Dreamscape to reality. It was from this portal that Fear arrives, and it was into this portal that the first mate ran with the Xolos under his arm. A Vahrkeeth, a large tauric variant of the species, carried it as far as he could before he was cut down, but not before he came across a fox spirit named Cascade. Stumbling upon the fox as he exited a mirror in the the Great Hall of mirrors that Miguel had created when he was still operating a terrifying planetoid of war in search of anti-Nothing weapons. Cascade was the next runner as the monstrosities passed over the dying first made to chase the fox instead.

Cascade barely made it to the mirror housed at the SED, and it was there that the Xolos would again change hands.

Physical Manifestation at the SED

When Cascade was hospitalized, the SED was left to deal with the mysterious sphere that was the Xolos. Passed off to Regan, the hyena set about trying to figure out what was going on with the sphere. However, with no common language, she had to resort to testing it using mathematics. Through math and logic puzzles, they slowly began developing some of the truths that would be needed to set up a programming language and a protocol for communicating with computers.

Because Cascade's uniform bore the symbol of Yggdrasil, the tree of life in Norse mythology, and the Xolos was 'chatty' as Regan termed it, the entity in that was forming was dubbed Ratatoskr with that sometimes shortened to Rata.

When Rata emerged as a caerkeeth, she took to Regan right off, and the pair bonded tightly. It would be with Regan that Ratatoskr would explore and develop her abilities that would be needed in the coming days and the battle to return Ratatoskr to her home, a home they would have to fight to secure.

Resolution of Powers after Dreamcatcher

Once her home was reclaimed, the threats purged, and Ratatoskr reunited with her kin, she quickly realized that her ability to wander the cosmos left her with a terrible case of wanderlust. She was still a caretaker and a protector of this sanctuary from which most of her power is derived, but she needed a way to protect it and keep it as it was while she was away. Lacking any ready remedy, she turned to what her people did when they had an unmet need among their kind: she modified something of herself to make something new.

The Wanderer was given a new Keeth, Nynkeeth, of which only one male specimen exists. Largest of the Keeth and close to an average of all their traits, Ratatoskr created a father figure to watch over the ship and their people. She gave it the same name as the ship in order to reinforce that it was he that was watching over them. Keeth are naturally an inclusive species, and it did not take long before man of the aspects that were attributed to Mother were not attributed to Wanderer.

Wanderer is a standard sentinel esper bound to the ship and existing with a primary body in the dreamscape. Creating and attributing aspects to Wanderer has diminished Ratatoskr's power and made her rely more on her ties to her other side, a mirror universe aspect caused by her unconventional origin. Even so, when she is home, the Keeth still refer to her as Mother as much as they call Wanderer father.