Tempest - The Living Lightning
So here's a write-up for Whisperer's alter ego as seen in
Rise of the Tempest.Tempest - The Living Lightning
At a glance:
Description: A vaguely umbrella-shaped mass of blue-white electricity trailing dozens of lightning-like tentacles.
Personality traits: Arrogant, cruel, spiteful, sadistic.
Motivation: Hunger for the electrical component of nerve impulses.
Capabilities: Telepathy, teleportation, ethereal shifting, tactile simulation, motor impairment.
In depth:
A being of pure psychic energy, Tempest is Whisperer’s recently freed alter ego. He arose from a combination of the inner storm Whisperer developed after being electrocuted and dormant personality traits rendered obsolete by the alien’s changing attitude toward his prey. Infused with the mystic energies of several unusually talented students and exposed to the unstable processes of an insane victim, these elements became a new and separate entity.
Tempest takes the form of an unnaturally stable electrical anomaly with a roughly jellyfish-like shape: a vaguely umbrella-shaped mass with dozens of lightning-like tentacles emerging from its underside. The psychic ‘electricity’ that makes up Tempest is usually blue-white in color, but he could, potentially, change that at will. Despite his electrical nature, Tempest can exert force and touch with his tentacles without harming his victims. He can also interface directly with a victim’s nerves, producing almost any sensation imaginable.
Since he is an entirely psychic entity, he has no physical mass, despite his ability to interact with physical creatures. He can travel freely between ‘layers’ of reality, submerging himself in the ether that permeates all facets of existence. While ‘submerged,’ Tempest is virtually undetectable to those without psychic sensitivity. He becomes invisible, inaudible (not that he makes much noise in any case) and insubstantial. His presence can still be felt, however, producing a strange tingling if he ‘touches’ or overlaps a physical being. He can also still interface directly with a physical entity’s nervous system to produce tactile sensations. Tempest can pull anything he is in contact with into the either when he submerges. Such objects or beings remain ‘physical’ with respect to Tempest, but become just as invisible, inaudible and insubstantial as he is to the rest of the world.
In the deepest parts of the ether, space and thought converge, allowing Tempest to travel anyplace he can think of in the time it takes to form the thought. Consequently, he can effectively teleport anywhere in the universe almost instantaneously, though he has to have some inkling as to where it is that he’s going. Basically, he just can’t go to places he hasn’t been to or heard about.
Tempest’s telepathy is highly developed. He can probe even the strongest of human minds with little difficulty and could potentially erase, modify or instil memories in a subject.
Tempest feeds on the electrical impulses of a victim’s nervous system. Theoretically that includes everything from autonomic and sensory signals to thoughts and emotions. In practice, however, Tempest primarily devours motor signals and strong emotions or attempts at concentration. His favorite dish is the wildly chaotic burst of impulses that accompanies orgasm, especially if strong emotions such as fear, anger or shame are also present. Consequently, he tends to taunt and deride his victims while he molests them, attempting to fill them with doubt and self-loathing (or just plain loathing) even as he forces them to climax. The signals he feeds upon tend to be weakened significantly. This is especially true of motor signals. Muscle responses become sluggish and weak, and the harder a victim tries to fight, the more she feeds the beast and the weaker her struggles become. Further, when he devours the impulses produced by an orgasm, it makes the release less satisfying for the victim, though no less intense. This would tend to leave her body in a state of high arousal, the easier for her attacker to force her to climax again (and again . . . and again . . . ).
Tempest arose from all the worst traits of Whisperer’s personality. He is arrogant, spiteful and sadistic. He greatly enjoys ridiculing his victims and abusing them both ‘verbally’ and physically, especially if he can make their bodies betray them while he’s doing it. To him, there is nothing more exciting (or tastier) than a woman who succumbs to forced stimulation while she is filled with shame and doubt.