Random Character Spotlight!
name: Gilgamesh (Marduk Archtype)
alias: Marcus
story: The Seventh Hour (what else?)
age: 24 in the beginning, 30 in the middle, haven't gotten to the end yet
appearance: Marcus stands around six feet tall, and is very imposing. He has a medium build, not at all slender or skinny but not quite burly or hefty; he is much, much stronger than he looks, though. His eyes are black (I think) and his hairstyle is simple, but a little difficult to describe. He has very long sideburns that are black, and his hair is shaved very short in the back, up to the middle of his ears, I guess. This, too, is black. The rest of his hair is medium brown and hangs in sort of spikily around his head. You can't see the back or sides that well in his picture (this is the one with the crappy background, but his hair still came out okay) but the front is right. He's very athletic, has a very sharp chin (not pointy, just sharp) and when he's all dressed up for the Seventh Hour, he looks almost like he walked off the set of Rocky Horror, only with more clothes on. Lots of face paint, especially around his eyes- but when he's not all painted up, he's fairly tanned. He rarely smiles, and tends to dress conservatively when not filling his duties as Priest.

I love Marcus. Can't really tell you why, but I do. His alias is a reference to Marcus Aurelius, one of the better Roman Emperors (all of the Priests are named after figures in Roman history), but his real name is a reference to a Babylonian (I think) legend about a guy who went seeking immortality. Marcus doesn't know this, of course, because he has no memory of anything before the age of fourteen or so. He just sort of washed up on the shore of the Fire Clock and was taken in by the clergy. He's lived on the island ever since, and has never been anywhere else in his memory.

What Marcus doesn't remember is that his mother, Ninshubur sent him away with his father when he was fourteen and that they were ambushed on the road to Uruk- Enkum was killed, and Marcus was thrown in the Tigris. He hit his head a few times. It explains quite a lot, really. He was born on an island in the chain called The Lady's Necklace. It's named after a constellation, and both the island and one of the stars is named after Marcus- when his name was Marduk.

Marcus is the reincarnation of a slave in Queen Innana's House some seven thousand years before the story begins. His name was Marduk then, and he was Innana's favorite slave- Innana and her people were the original inhabitants of the planet, but humans came along and attempted to invade, only to find themselves slaughtered and enslaved. That was maybe ten thousand years before the story began. Innana has a soft spot for humans, and for Marduk in particular (she named him after her long dead brother), but she rules them with an iron fist anyway.

It's safe to say that they loved each other, but Marduk was getting tired of the whole slavery thing. He led a rebellion against Innana, which was summarily crushed. One thing led to another, and Innana cursed them both- him to an eternity of fighting against oppression, and herself to an eternity of fighting against the one man she loved above all others.

Marcus doesn't remember any of this- he sees Innana in his dreams but can't remember her name, or his own name, or anything useful or important. He gradually recalls more and more of his past- only to find that at one point, he killed Innana (she's immortal, or close to it), thus dooming her to an eternity of reincarnation, as well. Not long after, in another lifetime, Marcus rose to power among the humans and became a tyrant, ruling over them much as Innana had...and suddenly their roles were reversed. Marcus (then once again called Marduk) built the Fire Clock and the religion surrounding it, while Innana (then reincarnated as a nameless slavewoman) created the Moonsworn and took back the ruins of her old House.

Marcus can't remember why he built the Fire Clock- the religion focuses around the celebration of death. Seven Hours to a day, with the Lost Hour in the very dead of night. The Seven Hours are dedicated to death, each one attributed to an aspect of mourning, or to the stages of immolation which a body undergoes while being burned (random bit of trivia: it takes seven hours for a human body to burn completely- that's the underlying inspiration for this whole mess). The Lost Hour is the only time of day during which life is celebrated. It's all very depressing and assumes that death is inevitable and that everything is pointless. After three thousand years, it's become ingrained in everyone, save for the Barren Moonsworn. The Barren operate on the assumption that at some point, everyone will be reincarnated as a woman, and that girl child will be unwanted, and will be sent to the Moon City, where they'll rip out her heart and turn her into an immortal undead creature called a Barren. When a Barren is killed, she isn't reincarnated; her soul is dead. The Barren are body slaves, for the most part. It's the easiest way for them to spy on the rest of humanity, and they are, for the most part, subdued creatures. Vata and Asphodel are exceptions to this, but they're both crazy.

Marcus doesn't know any of this, aside from the legend, lore, and history of the Fire Clock, until someone destroys the Clock and Asphodel (a Barren who belonged to Amulius and was given to Marcus) takes him to Uruk, the Moon City.

I love Marcus because he's essentially just a really nice guy, a little withdrawn and long suffering, who suddenly finds out that he's supposed to save the human race from themselves. As Priest of the Seventh Hour, he has a great deal of authority on the island, despite the fact that everyone knows he only has the job because his best friend is Head Priest. Marcus and Amulius are very close and Marcus is absolutely devastated when he finds that Amulius has come down with the plague. They were probably lovers at some point, if only because they were so very close, and to pass the time. (Generally there aren't many women in the clergy, though there are a lot of Barren working on the island- Marcus has a deep aversion to Moonsworn, though, partly due to his rather extensive history...)

Everyone in this story has a few gender issues- I think Amulius has it the worst, though I'm sure Lucretia and Numa have some issues, as well. Reincarnation doesn't give a damn about gender, so Marcus does occasionally have flashbacks to being a girl, and they disturb him a great deal. I'm not even sure what gender Amulius was originally, though...I only know that at some point his name was Zelindo, and at another it was Jezebel, and he can't figure out which one he'd rather be. Issues.

When not dancing the Hour or exercising, Marcus reads. A lot. We're talkin' ridiculous wealth of useless knowledge, here. He knows more about the history of the Clock and the old religion than anyone else in the temple, though he's not sure how much of it is learned from the library or remembered.

His relationship with Asphodel is rather strange...she's a Barren, which means that during the full moon she's a barely nubile teenager with raging hormones, and during the new moon she's practically going through menopause, and she hits every stage inbetween over the course of two weeks. They have a slightly twisted love/hate thing going on- and Marcus generally just throws up his hands in frustration, despair, and confusion over the whole thing. He's a silly, clueless, sheltered child, he is.

So, that's Marcus, in a very large nutshell. He spends the majority of his time either unconscious or very confused, and I love him.

Guess I'll have to do Asphodel soon, or Amulius...oh, they all have so many issues...