The Rotting Scion

(Legacy Content)

The Rotting Scion is a term given to a person transformed by the Blade of Rot into its champion of pestilence. The Scion is not a person, but a being inhabited by the cruel sentience within the blade itself, bent and twisted by its will to corrupt the world. The creature this intelligence creates resembles the original person as much as a fresh, walking corpse would, though strangely the face and parts of the torso are kept intact by the will of the blade for some unknown reason, only speculated to be as a form of psychological warfare, informing those that fight its champion that they will be next.
All of the information herein will be an extrapolation on the current data for the sentience behind the Blade of Rot.

Physical Description

General Physical Condition

A Rotting Scion - once they have been fully transformed - will possess a similar body structure to that of the original creature, save that all but the head and parts of the torso will be in various states of decay, at times exposing the gangrenous muscle or blackened bones underneath the pallid flesh. That said, the creature suffers no physical penalties for being in this state - in fact, they are oftentimes much more physically capable than they were in life.

Identifying Characteristics

A Rotting Scion can be easily identified by numerous factors, detailed in the list that follows:

• A Rotting Scion is almost always followed by an aura of stench and filth that can cause nausea and even inflict disease on said weakened organisms. It seems to be capable of turning this aura on and off to facilitate stealth.
• A Rotting Scion always appears as obvious rotting corpse of the original creature.
• If a Rotting Scion is removed from the Blade of Rot, it will attempt to retrieve it no matter the cost to itself, regardless of the blade's position or distance away from it. The Scion appears capable of tracking the blade no matter how far away it may be, or behind whatever material. If the blade is not retrieved within approximately twenty-four hours, the Scion falls to the ground and rapidly decomposes into a pile of infectious filth.

Special abilities

Similarly to the Blade, any physical skin to skin contact with a Rotting Scion confers at least one disease to the assailant. Additionally, so long as the Scion remains in contact with the blade, it can quickly recover from any injury it may sustain, and cannot truly be slain.

Mental characteristics

Personal history

The first recorded account of The Blade of Rot was in the middle of the Second Era, when a mortal champion in Gjalvalore came across the blade, which had somehow appeared in his armory. He proceeded to wield the blade and test its properties, though when he discovered its pestilence he attempted to seal it away. The blade, however, convinced him of its usefulness, and persuaded him to continue using it, thus allowing it to corrupt him into the first Rotting Scion. It took the combined effort of multiple heroes to finally put the filthy creature down, and from there it would go from being sealed in some manner of vault to in the hands of yet another Scion until Order themselves stepped in to take custody of the blade, finally sealing the artifact within a vault beneath the Crown of the World alongside numerous other terrible items of vile power. That is where it has stayed to this day.

Intellectual Characteristics

The consciousness of the Blade appears to possess a high level of intelligence, capable of recognizing threats to its scion and responding with complex strategies. It is not known if this intelligence possesses any inherent knowledge about our world, or if it does how much it knows, but such a concept has proven quite frightening to most extraplanar experts.

Morality & Philosophy

The Blade of Rot seems to possess only one desire: to corrupt and destroy all life it comes across, turning everything it touches into a plague-filled nightmare.

Personality Characteristics

Motivation

The true motivation of the sentience behind the Blade of Rot is unknown, but its desire to defile all life has been made abundantly clear by the truly staggering amount of lives it has claimed and entire ecosystems it has destroyed.

Alignment

Always changes to Neutral Evil

Eyes

Varies

Hair

Varies

Skin Tone/Pigmentation

Varies

Height

Varies

Weight

Varies

Known Languages

From what can be interpreted of its many users in the past, the Blade is capable of understanding any language, written or spoken, regardless of biological capability to produce the sounds required to speak in those languages.