![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
APP.
Player: Qing
Age: 30+
Contact: percivals @ plurk
Current Characters: N/A
Character: Taishakuten
Canon: Onmyoji, canon point: post ‘Return of Mara’ after he gets his memories wiped. Unfortunately, while there is plenty of canon material, no one actually summarised it / wrote it down, but you can view the playthroughs here
Age: Many, many centuries old.
Background Information:
A translation of Taishakuten’s in-game biography.
Background information and lore.
Playlist of videos from Onmyoji's official YT
I will summarise in the paragraphs below. I’m very sorry in advance about the length of this because there is A LOT, but have compiled and cut down as much as I can. There is a lot of canon material in terms of videos but nearly none in written form. So, for context, background, etc:
Taishakuten is a Celestial, part of a race of beings that are beyond gods, humans, or demons. Celestials are the only ones who are born from the merging of Spiritual Entities, and who only die when their Spiritual Entities are destroyed. They can come back from the dead time and time again, if their soul still exists.
Celestials originally existed in a world called Trayastrimsa as formless beings. Their minds were connected, and there was no conflict at all. However, that changed millennia ago when they migrated to the Demon Realm because the rulers of the Celestials were selfish and greedy, and abandoned otheir home and came to the Demon Domain and built Zenken Castle. The Celestials have lived in the Demon Realm ever since.
In the Demon Realm, the Celestials obtained physical forms and their minds were no longer connected. They chased the demons, who were the residents of the Demon Realm, to the very edges of the Demon Realm, which naturally led to centuries of war between both the Celestials and demons. The celestials were led by the 10 officials/noblemen called the Deca, who became even more corrupted and acted only for their own benefit.
Taishakuten was born into a noble family, and he also was the product of a prophecy which declared that a holy child would be born from a ritual, and that this child would change the fate of the celestials in the Demon Realm. The Deca then sacrificed women to something called a Ritual of Descension for centuries. These women would go mad as they wouldn’t be able to handle the power – until one day, Taishakuten was born from that ritual. His birth, however, drove his mother mad.
This led Taishakuten to be shunned by his family. Taishakuten had the ability to read hearts and minds, as well as an ability to empathise with people to the extent that he can share and lighten their pain if he put his mind to it.
Anyway, Taishakuten hated war and felt powerless about the constant battles between Celestials and the demons, he also hated that he wasn’t able to help much aside from using his own abilities to ‘heal’. He founded his own militia, called The Wings. During this, however, he developed a habit of consuming ‘nectar’, which is a sort of drug that helps Celestials to escape their problems for the time being.
One day, when inspecting a region, Taishakuten was attacked by a demon but Asura saved him; leading Taishakuten to realise that Asura was the hero that he was looking for. But Asura had a problem – he loses his sanity whenever he uses his Spiritual Entity (i.e. the murder-tentacles). While Asura’s power was gloriously overwhelming, Asura also tended to attack and kill the people on his side while in that state of madness. Taishakuten discovered that he could actually reach Asura and calm him down from his madness using his own power. In short, he found a use for his mind abilities and together, the two of them were unstoppable. They both fought against the demons and won many battles.
During a particular terrible battle with a Monster-God where Asura was battered and barely surviving, Taishakuten reached into his psyche and discovered that when Ashura was young, he accidentally killed his mother during a demon raid, because his Spiritual Entity was awakened. Seeing this, Taishakuten swore to be his shield and his eyes, and to protect him no matter what. After the battle, Asura almost died, but unbeknownst to him, Taishakuten exchanged his heart (because Taishakuten’s heart was unbreakable and strong) with Asura’s, which had been heavily injured.
After that, they continued winning battles, and when they returned to their city, they were hailed as heroes, but the nobles/Deca hated that. Asura, of course, did not care for the nobles. Sometime during their many military campaigns against the demons, Taishakuten and Asura had agreed that the Celestials needed a coup against the Deca, because it was their greed and incompetence that caused these wars. Unfortunately, Asura ran out of patience for Taishakuten's plans; he turned on Taishakuten and
Taishakuten promptly betrayed Asura by doing two things: sharing with the Deca that Asura was a half-breed (half-demon, half-Celestial), which led the idiot Komyoten to head on to the Asura camp to loudly share that fact and get himself killed. But not before freaking out Asura’s followers. Asura promptly killed all of them, too. Anyway, the second thing Taishakuten did was much worse: when Asura headed back to Zenken in a bid to take on the Deca (who by now were all shitting their pants) Taishakuten was the one to face Asura. He created an illusion of Asura’s mother, which brought Taishakuten close enough to stab and ‘kill’ Asura. Taishakuten also took a part of Asura's spiritual entity and fused it with his own.
This act of betrayal helped Taishakuten to ingratiate himself to the Deca, putting him in a position to ultimately overthrow them. And he did overthrow them, violently and cruelly. Upon his coronation day as king of the Celestials, he seized control of the Deca’s minds and bodies and forced them to confess their sins. He unleashed his own fury upon them and claimed that the greatest of all their sins was spreading rumours and framing Asura, the greatest hero, and getting him killed (when Taishakuten was the one who spread the rumour and also killed Asura in the first place). He made them rip out their own hearts and kill themselves while he sat on his lotus throne and watched it all unfold. It was not great.
After his brutal purge of the entire court/all the ruling nobles (as well as many in The Wings, the group he founded), he broke the Celestial Realm off from the Demon Realm after, and instilled the Ten Precepts, turning the Celestial Realm into a meritocracy instead of one run by nobles. In short, he straight-up leaned into being an absolute tyrant of a king. Those who were seen as strong were allowed to live. Those who were seen as weak were thrown into the Abyss with the demons and monster-gods. Asura was thrown into the Abyss as well.
Taishakuten, however, did not seem to be able to handle all the brutal things he had done, and created a dream realm where he looped the events of his past over and over, from meeting Asura and fighting the demons to betraying him in a desperate bid to find a different outcome. Inside the dream realm he had made, he repeated the events of the past for many centuries. When he experienced the past, his memory was also rewound to that point. To maintain the realm, Orochi, a dark god, helped him to absorb energy from Heian Kyoto.
But every time, the outcome was the same: Asura would be betrayed and stabbed. Eventually, Taishakuten got stuck in the realm of his own making. The fragment of their spiritual entity fusion caused discomfort to Taishakuten, and he cast part of it away; this fragment ended up in Ibaraki's arm.
Years later, the Heian gang (Seimei, Shuten Doji, Yorimitsu, Ibaraki Doji, Kohaku, Onikiri et al) ended up in the Demon Realm and got caught in Taishakuten's realm. There, they experienced Taishakuten and Asura’s past. Unbeknownst to Taishakuten, Unknown to Taishakuten, Asura was also in this particular run of the loop. He had taken advantage of the fragment in Ibaraki's arm and joined in. As always, everything happened all over again, from meeting to betrayal to death: but this time, when Taishakuten was going to kill Asura, Asura stabbed himself instead. This act broke the loop of the realm and bought Asura time to pull the Heian group out of the realm to the Abyss. Asura then enlisted their help to destroy what kept him bound to the Abyss and return to the Celestial Realm to
Also, somewhere during these whole dream realm mindfuck shenanigans, Taishakuten tries to reconcile with Asura by tempting him with the promise of living peacefully in Trayastrimsa, their ancestral home. They spent many centuries living in a dream house on a hill with a lotus pond out the front. Asura tended geese while Taishakuten was generally an incompetent menace when it came to domestic things. But overall, Taishakuten wanted to merge Trayastrimsa and the mortal realm together so that they could all be one and all conflict and war will be wiped out. This is very not great.
Once the Heian gang got Asura out of the abyss, it’s shown that a giant planet
During their final showdown, Asura tore out Taishakuten's heart and realised that his own heart and soul was inside Taishakuten. Taishakuten then bid Asura to eat the heart so that they could become one, but Asura destroyed it. It was revealed that all along his plan was to become a tyrant so Asura would overthrow him and finally be loved, revered, and hailed as a hero. Asura also found out that when Taishakuten placed his own heart inside of Asura.
After thwarting that plan and saving the mortal realm, Asura caught Taishakuten as he was falling and held him. Taishakuten was barely alive. Asura, who now had the incredible power to rewrite events, basically Uno Reversed Taishakuten’s plans and rewrote everything. Now, the reality was this: Taishakuten defeated the dreaded, feared, terrifying Lord Mara (Asura), sealed him in the Abyss, and brought peace to the Celestials. Now, it would be Taishakuten who was finally loved by his family and his people, revered and honoured as a good king.
Taishakuten, who was in Asura’s arms as the reality-rewriting began to take effect, resisted him and the rewriting until Asura bid him to sleep, humming a lullaby that Asura’s mother had sang to him.
Taishakuten awoke, then, with all the rewritten memories, but something in him still remembered Asura even if he can’t pin down his memories.
Personality:
• Compassionate, empathetic – Taishakuten cares about the people around him, as well as the downtrodden and the everyday people who were treated cruelly by the Deca because they weren’t noble. He himself acknowledged that with his ‘weak’ spiritual entity, he was only treated well because he was born a noble. The main gist of Taishakuten’s ability is that he can greatly lesson people’s pain by sharing it with them, and he does it instinctively and often, to the point where Asura sometimes has to stop him, as it takes a toll on him. Taishakuten evidently also cares enough to want to overthrow the Deca and bring an end to suffering and war.
• Idealistic – Taishakuten believes that it is possible to put an end to war and to come to a stage where everyone can understand each other and there will be no more conflict. This is, of course, not possible, but he does his damndest to make it happen – and he takes his idealism to extreme, brutal ends: by murdering his entire court on his coronation day, installing a meritocratic system, and eventually engineering it so that their homeland Trayastrimsa comes crashing into their realm and they can all be ‘connected’ and ‘of one mind’ together again. But also Taishakuten’s other plan to play up his evil and tyrannical side so Asura can kill him and become a hero.
• Polite – As noble-born, Taishakuten is well-mannered and composed, elegant and polite, even if he’d mentioned once that there are several rude things he wants to say about the corrupted and degenerate Deca.
• Shrewd/strategic - Because Taishakuten had always had to rely on his intelligence instead of his power, he is very aware of what needs to be done to get what he needs (i.e. protecting the city, which will fall if they murder the Deca right then instead of working with them), including bowing to the Deca that he and Asura so despise. He has always been a man who sees the big picture and behaves accordingly in order to achieve his goals, no matter how long it may take, or if he has to swallow his pride to do it. Which, of course, leads to the acrimonious break-up between him and Asura. Taishakuten, of course, achieves his goal at the end and becomes king. And changes the system.
• Low self-worth – Taishakuten once explicitly stated that he wouldn’t mind sacrificing his life so that others can achieve victory as well as his dream of peace. He also thinks of himself and his own powers as weak (even if it turns out they are anything but), and doesn’t believe that he deserves to be loved. He accepts his family shunning him because the ritual that he was born in had caused his mother to go mad, and his brothers hated him for it. Asura also once mentioned, essentially (paraphrasing here) that he would show him that he deserves to be loved.
• Escapist/dissociative – Taishakuten displays this habit on a few occasions; first being retreating into a drug ‘nectar’ from time to time to escape the grim fact that his fellow Celestials seem to be losing the war to the demons. Another incident was when he created a dream world to loop the events of his past over and over again to find another way out. Yet another incident was when he was speaking to Asura and he told him that the ‘real’ Taishakuten wouldn’t have done what he did, and he refused to acknowledge that he was the ‘real’ Taishakuten and that yes, he did do all those horrible, shitty things.
• Stubborn / loyal – to the end, Taishakuten only wants peace and he wants Asura to be venerated, loved and revered as a hero. He even swapped hearts with him so that Asura could be even stronger. And Taishakuten was insistent to see his plan through to the end, no matter what it took or how many people it hurt.
• Self-sacrificing – Taishakuten explicitly shared that he would not mind sacrificing himself as long as his life would help someone else. He’d also said that he would take on the sins of the whole world, and he became a great evil tyrant that Asura had to kill. In that way, Asura would be the hero who killed the tyrant, and he would be loved – just as planned, for him.
• The ends justify the means – Taishakuten betrayed a lot of people. First, stabbing his best friend Asura and tossing him into the Abyss in order to ingratiate himself with the Deca. Betraying the militia he founded, the Wings, and throwing them into the Abyss as well, where they’re forced to consume each other to be stronger. He murdered every single noble in his court by making them rip their own hearts out. He initiated the descent of Trayastrimsa to bring peace. All because he wanted to take on the sins of the people, bring peace, and make Asura a hero.
• Hypocrite – When he punished the nobles by forcing them to confess their sins, one of the biggest crimes in his eyes was their betrayal of Asura. He explicitly stated that they were guilty of spreading rumors of the great Asura and making him look like the villain, and also getting him killed. Spoiler: Taishakuten was the one who told Komyouten this. Also Taishakuten was the one who murdered him.
Abilities & Inventory: Taishakuten can create powerful illusions, seals, barriers, and control the minds and actions of people. He can read the hearts and minds of people when he wants to. He can also heal himself during a fight. Additionally, Taishakuten’s ability to ‘heal’ utilises his ability of empathy where he can take on the pain, whether mental or physical, of the other person to minimise its effects.
He also has a surprising amount of destructive power – he can use his Spiritual Entity to fight and create weaponry like swords. He can also tell the future of a person through tea leaves.
Taishakuten is also powerful enough to create realms and separate physical realms from each other nerf: he can no longer do that in this world.
Suitability & Plans: I want to play Taishakuten in Songerein because this place is something away from his world. Taishakuten is not a stranger to different realms, but this one is special in the sense that he didn’t create it, and it’s a separate new place that can and will give him a second chance at living another kind of life. The people he’s also met in the TDM have piqued his interest and spurred on a new fascination with this realm, as it brings in people who are from worlds he doesn’t even know about.
All his life, Taishakuten grew up in the middle of so many wars. Although (through Asura’s retconning of events), he is now known as the Celestial King who brought peace to the Celestials and demons, it is clear that he treasures and yearns to live a quiet, peaceful life with the person he loves, in a house on a hill and a lotus pool in front of it. Raising a few geese and all. Also, bonus that no one knows him, he likes that, too.
This place is capable of giving him a much-needed reprieve, and considering Taishakuten’s escapist personality, he would definitely take that chance. After all, what is a few years to someone who has lived for at least a few millennia? He wants, at least, this opportunity to live his life without having the burden of a king, no matter how much he loves his people. He deserves a second chance here with the man he loves.
As an aside, Taishakuten is also very interested in this world, because this is his first time experiencing such a thing, with fairies and different creatures that are familiar to him but not the same. He will definitely want to explore and contribute and figure out just who’s behind this realm and how it works. He’s also seen the ruins of his world, and he wants to know who were here before them, and if he can help restore this place as much as he can. He’s also generally predisposed to being helpful and has a pretty open and curious mind, so he’s more than happy to help anyone out, create plots and storylines, and participate.
Test Drive Sample: Sample 1 and
Questions: Any questions you might have.