Occula

Occula is a Cyclops born sometime before or during the Age of Enchantment. She was a prominent figure and the department head of Gravimutation at the University of Spectron where she is a well-respected academic. Her sister is Omnisha, a prominent member for the Party of One and eventual magistrate of Spectron. Despite their stark difference personalities--Occula being reserved, and Omnisha an ambitious socialite--the two had a seemingly unbreakable bond which only unraveled at the end of the Wars of Disenchantment.

She appears as an approximately 7 foot tall figure with a well-built frame. Her hair is long, with the colouring of a lavender flower with streaks of grey from aging. It is braided and hangs out with the many scarves in Occula's hood. Her skin is tinged with a grey hue.

Like all Cyclopes, Occula's eye is a naturally occurring Arcane Focus. It is described as "marvelously beautiful," glistening with what appears to be dynamic galaxies with colours that run the spectrum, dancing from side-to-side. The pupil hints silver like the moons' reflection and looks like it is gazing into infinity, and widens involuntarily during Occula's visions.

During the Shadow Age Occula's face and body is scarred and burned. She wraps in layers of scarves that resembles a niqab with a veil that covers her eye and wears dark grey traveler's robes (they look like the outfits of "The Many Mothers / Vuvalini" from Mad Max). She has hide pants and boots.

Occula brandishes an obsidian staff that glows with residual energy when magic runs through it. This characteristic of the staff is evident when Onyx touches it, and it seems to glitch.

When Onyx's Neckiscope breaks, Occula's eye becomes Onyx's new arcane focus.

Occula loves nothing more than expanding knowledge, but is petrified that knowledge will be used for evil. Occula has a famously cunning intellect--it is rumoured that she once unraveled the mind of a up-and-coming academic during a debate, accidentally dismantling his existence in the process. Extreme tellings of the story say that the ash from his remains are what Occula used to create her obsidian staff. What is certain is that Occula levelled the playing field when dealing with cruel and/or power-hungry individuals--of which there were many in the budding metropolises of Spectron and Horaio.

Age of Enchantment

Occula's goal is to do good in the world and make positive contributions to society with her vast knowledge of magic, which she attempts to do as a department head of Gravimutation at the University of Spectron. Her developments have increased the viability of gravimutational flying castles, and is responsible for the world's robust mail system.

Despite Occula's vast successes and inventions, her colleagues question her abilities due to her schizophrenia. Consequently, Occula is seen as the lesser of the twin cyclopes, as Omnisha is known as a more reliable and competent figure. This mental illness has the unfortunate side effect of inducing Occula with misdirecting visions, obscuring the true ones. Thanks to advances in medical magic during the Age of Enchantment, these symptoms are somewhat mitigated. It's a great relief to Occula because one of her greatest annoyances/embarrassments is the visions getting in the way of her intelligence and late night study sessions (as the symptoms are exacerbated by a lack of sleep). The visions are also somewhat debilitating of Occula, and leave her reeling with migraines.

Another persistent annoyance and embarrassment for Occula is that colleagues occasionally minimize her cutting intellect, chalking her insights up to a mechanical result of her eye and power. Occula is proud of her eye, but it has understandably troublesome consequences. For the most part, Occula is widely liked by anyone who has had the pleasure of working with her, been taught by her, or marveled at her papers.

Given her experiences with misdirecting visions, Occula believes that reality is equivalent to spirituality. Consequently, she is intrinsically motivated to learn all about reality that she can, believing them to be the "keys to the universe" which she could use to improve peoples' lives. To know the nature of the universe is one of Occula's biggest dreams.

Occula tries to avoid being involved with Omnisha's politics and the Party of One as her ultimate goal is to make the world a peaceful place without the need for violence; however, her sister finds ways of forcing her participation.

Relationship with Shuzgrub

Beyond discovering magical incantations and the nature of the universe, Occula's life during this period was enhanced by Dr. Shuzgrub, an Orcish professor of Magical Arts. The two had known each other since childhood, but developed a romance as the two got along famously at University mixers where the two were known to enjoy a drink or to. And so, Occula fell in love with Dr. Shuzgrub and the autumn, where the two would dance under dwindling leaves and beautiful mirages cast by Shuzgrub and his illusion magic. Of course, Occula had already been in love with autumn as the beginning of the academic year and her new incoming crop of students. Occula is intoxicated by Shuzgrub's ability to make her laugh with how he plays with reality in the lightest and purest of ways.

After beginning her relationship with Shuzgrub, Occula finds herself entangled between spending time with him and propping her sister Omnisha in her political career as she fends radical ideologies from taking hold of the Party of One -- Omnisha's latest political venture. In turn, Omnisha begins to resent Shuzgrub and his relationship with Occula.

When the Wars of Disenchantment with Horaio started, Occula found herself in the midst of competing ideologies battling on the university grounds. Some at Spectron, the Party of One, believed they could share their prosperity with the whole world if it were under one banner. Of course, achieving this goal would require a show of force.

While Occula was against the war, she make breakthroughs in her Gravitmutation department by discovering Anti-magic, which could be weaponized to make bombs capable of crushing entire empires. Plucked out of time and space, anti-magic can suck the life and magic out of the affected area. Occula was conflicted to share her discovery, but eventually confided it to Omnisha as a show of trust.

To Occula's horror, The Party of One ceded control of Spectron and immediately took advantage of this knowledge and developed such weapons. Plagued with dark visions of the weapons being used, Occula leaked knowledge of anti-magic to Horaio and the other empires to stabilize the world by creating a state of mutually-assured construction. Her magic allows her to leak the knowledge without Omnisha's knowledge.

Omnisha's views a date between Occula and Shuzgrub as they go on a walk and Shuzgrub reads poetry. At the end of the date, Occula urges Shuzgrub to depart. Omnisha takes this as evidence of Shuzgrub's treason, and orders his public execution the next day.

Led by her visions and heartbreak, Occula depart from Spectron after Shuzgrub's execution, setting Omnisha in a fit of rage. A week later, Occula is headed far north when the bombs hit.

Shadow Age

During the Shadow Age, Occula is about 500 years olds, which would be about someone in their late 60s in human years. She is obsessed with organizing her delusions in Occula's Flying Tower, which has its walls covered in Occula's unorganized notes and scrawlings (though the narrators of "Tears of Occula" only guess how long a born Cyclops lives for, since there are none in their current world. They assume a similar lifespan to ancient elves). She is trying to decipher the origins of the chosen one and her visions so that she mentor them to save the world. She is mortified with the outcome with the Wars of Disenchantment and wishes to repair it as much as she can because she feels guilty in her part in it's demise.

In Occula's isolation, her visions have become more clouded by her schizophrenia. More than ever, she is scared of losing control and using what remains of her power to solve the world's problems.

To some extent, Occula is aware that Omnisha is behind the shrouding of the world in anti-magic.

At this time, she is a hermit being lured by the The Faeries, and cannot control her visions of the future or know which ones are misdirections from her mental illness. Consequently, when Onyx hums a faerie song, it triggers Occula's visions to the past. She remembers her love, Shuzgrub.

Without the support of magic during she had during the Age of Enchantment, Occula can't differentiate between past visions that happened and visions that didn't play out.

Relationship with Onyx

When Occula first sees Onyx, she says, "you're the one, the one I see."

Onyx, however, is in hysterics--crying and sad. Occula is not impressed by the antics; however, she is at least compassionate until Onyx confesses to "killing" her entire village of Waldon and has adopted the attitude of a nihilistic teenager. It is then Occula realizes Onyx is her "student from hell."

"This can't be right, this can't be right! You're supposed to be pure, you were supposed to be perfect!" Occula screams.

Eventually, Occula comes to enjoy Onyx's presence, rediscovering her joy of teaching at the University of Spectron. They are both strong-headed leader types, which causes the two to bicker incessantly. However, as Occula warms up to Onyx as she grows, she becomes more willing to follow Onyx's lead--Occula is okay being a follower if she believes in the person and their cause (thus she was okay to follow Omnisha's lead during the Age of Enchantment before the Wars of Disenchantment).

It also becomes clear to Occula that Onyx would have been a great magical inventor had she been alive during the Age of Enchantment. It's a comfort to Occula, knowing that Onyx would use her knowledge for good, and is a foundational factor as Occula begins to trust Onyx.

Onyx is naive in a way that Occula finds amusing, especially because Onyx has no idea what anything is beyond the bulwark of Waldon. This is especially apparent when Onyx tries new food--it's absolute culture shock.

Still, Occula both enjoys and admires Onyx's determination and candour--even when it gets them into confrontations or Onyx incessantly interrupts Occula and asks her annoying questions. As Onyx grows, she comes to learn how to question properly and is not so disruptive to Occula. This is a big relief to Occula, who likes when people question authority but don't interrupt or overshadow others. Even Onyx' confrontation turns into killer protective instinct, and she often ends up standing up for Occula in their journeys. Occula considers such gestures unnecessary but appreciated nonetheless.

Another cause of conflict between Occula and Onyx is that the former is allergic to Skunkbat and generally finds him to be a nuisance.