Storyweaver's Peril

-Samson has a business partner named Anthony deLuca (usually just goes by Luca) and he helped Samson start on the process of actually reopening the aquarium as a business. They're best friends, but purely platonic, despite what some new fans of the aquarium might think.

-Samson is a hand-on owner and manager of the aquarium, always fixing everything himself if absolutely possible. There's a few things he does have to call professionals for, but ideally he'd like to DIY the solutions where he can.

-Samson isn't stupid, but he doesn't know a lot of things, and doesn't have the same frame of mind or experience with certain subjects as humans. To fill these gaps in his knowledge he reads a lot, but he struggles with having books in an aquarium since he has to be in human form to read them.

AND....the real problem for the aquarium. The problem they hadn't seen coming. The cult.

When Vincent died, he took the entire cult with him. Or....almost the entire cult. Samson doesn't know the full history of the cult, but he knows they call themselves The New Vision, and they pop up again every 10-15 years almost on a cycle, and they're usually driven by a dissatisfaction with the evolution of media and technology, tho he can never tell if they want to go BACK to the old ways or just want a DIFFERENT future.

The leader of The New Vision is always a slender figure in a suit with a TV-shaped mask that covers the whole head and is called Vox bc they're the Voice of the New Vision. Samson is pretty sure Vox is always a man bc they take direct inspiration from the way Vincent ran his movement in the 1950s but he admits one of the Voxes so far COULD have been a woman. What he knows is the current Vox took over in 2020 and took advantage of his new members feeling angry and isolated by the pandemic, and he is far more ambitious and active than any of the previous leaders. He could even put Vincent to shame with how actively he conspires against everyone around him.

He hasn't said as much openly when he talks to the media, but the latest Vox has an ultimate goal of EMF bombing the world to recreate it how The New Vision wants. The bigger problem is, even with Samson's limited knowledge of technology, he knows THIS COULD ACTUALLY CRIPPLE THE WORLD. (And it could.) Luca is kind of impressed that a cult genuinely has a goal that could work bc normally cults are about ascension and godhood and don't have any way or plan to affect people outside the cult beyond good old fashioned violence. Frankly it concerns him bc who the fuck is the newest Vox? He's way too smart for him to have come out of nowhere with all this knowledge and planning.

Me: FUCK YOU! *neurodiverges ur bible figures*

David, Son of Jesse, King of the Jews was DEFINITELY ADHD it makes everything make so much more sense. His mobility and adaptability in battle, his hyperfixations, his impulsiveness, his love of very strange little stims and tics and the way he sought comfort in those who put up with and accepted those behaviors in him the most? GOD literally had to remind him to eat sometimes in the bible, legitimately, because he was hyperfixating.

Joseph, Twelfth Son of Jacob, owner of a VERY nice coat.....AuDHD as FUCK. Flip flopping between interpreting dreams well and not interpreting the spoken word well. No concept of boundaries because no one explains it to him. Please please please let him info dump on you. Literally has anyone seen his AMAZING COAT? Yes he's shown you ten times in three minutes, how about an eleventh?

King Saul....man is so bipolar I don't know how he functions. His highs are amazing, but so are his lows. He literally tried to kill David several times, and he LOVES David. (He may have also had a brain tumor, which would have made both his highs and lows WORSE.)

Jesus Christ of Bethlehem. HA. Have you guys actually read the bible? I don't know what my boy would be exactly but there aint a neurotypical bone in his body. He will backhand you for disrespecting women, he has no boundaries, he has so many poetic phrases but responds to few. He once literally chased the moneychangers out of the court of the gentiles using a whip HE MADE RIGHT THERE bc HOW ELSE DO YOU MAKE SURE IT'S JUST RIGHT? Once cursed a fig tree bc it didn't have figs when he wanted them. When he was in his 20s he was attending a wedding and his mom kinda forced him to replenish the wine and he clearly wanted to disappear into the foreground bc "mooooooom". When he was a small child his whole family accidentally left him behind at the temple and instead of panicking he found some priests and started info dumping to them. He has to repeat everything three times not just because they aren't LISTENING (they aren't tho) but because he has a NEED to say things three times. He's the most important person alive but clearly hates being put on the spot and complains pretty much every time someone does it.

there's so many other examples but these were the ones at the top of my head

Webster is the Internet Overlord!

Expert ragebaiter, toxic true crime nerd, king of the trolls, he'll doxx you for one corn chip, source of 90% of misinformation deep fakes in Hell, often sends avatars in his place to meetings or doesn't show up at all, opting to spy on them through cameras and bugs instead. Chronically online. Could speak 100% in memes if he chooses to, and sometimes he does just to piss people off.

I went back and forth on when I wanted him to be from. And then, I found it....believe it or not in the song "Welcome to the Internet". The internet was mostly harmless blogs and travelogues and whatnot until the early 2000s, especially after 9/11. Webster is a person who uses the internet to make people feel worse because he feeds off of their pain, he was probably delighted when tragedy hit his country and he could feed off of it. He thirsts for the tears shed by the cyberbullied. He practically invented cyberbullying.

He's probably the ISP for Voxtek! Oh suuuuure, Vox could go with someone else if he wants except OH WAIT Webster is the only real option! He made sure of that!

And I've gone back and forth as well on which animal Webster actually resembles. His most common avatar resembles a piranha, makes him look small and adorable. He's actually a crocodile, though. One reason in particular I chose it is because crocodiles are known to hunt sharks.

Vox is a shark.

Vox rules cybersecurity now, sure, but he's still the TELEVISION overlord. He couldn't have seamlessly integrated to the next step up without some help. Velvette is the social media overlord but even she has to build off the internet. And all of that adds up to even the influencer overlords needing what Webster provides.

so

Samson was created.

Nisroc is the angel of independence and free will, born of the excess energy created by Lucifer's rebellion. Heaven has...mixed feelings on him. One of the worst days of Heaven's existence created a completely new angel with their own domain and power stemming from the free will Lucifer's rebellion created in humanity.

He was created with his own divine weapon, and a unique ability. On the one hand, this makes him incredibly powerful to a certain degree and it most likely means that God himself approves of Nisroc. On the other hand, he's limited and he just reminds Heaven of Lucifer constantly.

And Nisroc was assigned to Michael as his new assistant. Part of it is to keep Nisroc under the watchful eye of an archangel, and part of it is to make someone keep an eye on Michael. He's a war veteran several times over and sometimes he's...not okay.

I roleplayed as a version of Nisroc for a while so im just gonna take the character I used and transpose him slightly.

Nisroc's unique divine weapon is a whip, for the record. He can grab things with it, swing on it, and even bind people. Since he has a natural divine weapon, he can technically hurt other angels, too....don't make him aware of it, though. And his unique ability...is a doozy in the Hazbinverse, when you think about it.

Nisroc can release any kind of binding or contract that is not mutual or willed. Basically, if a contract becomes one-sided only meant to trap someone, he can sever it. (For instance: since Alastor was no longer upholding his end of the deal with Rosie, it would have fallen under Nisroc's domain to sever if he chose, just to choose something that explains this better. Or if Valentino stops providing the fame and money Angel gets for his work, Nisroc could technically sever that one as well.)

Nisroc is stymied, however, by the fact that he is a literal twink and doesn't have the physical strength to fight proper overlords. One of his strongest weapons against them is his ability to conjure and banish a weapon against them at will. It has its uses, but it's far from practical. And how often does severing contracts come up, anyways? Especially considering his domain of free will only allows him to sever the contracts that aren't wanted or beneficial to both sides.

Michael

and im like, y'know what, yeah

just plot bunnies

If Lucien ever got into trouble with Vox, like being dragged to hell via his connection to his great grandfather, Absalom would agree to swap places in a heartbeat. And Lucien would do the same for him. (Absalom would probably try to ban Lucien from being dragged to hell by Alastor bc "I'M the expert in voodoo here, I'M the one who knows how to get out by myself, I need you here on THIS side setting everything up again and I am NOT letting you self-sacrifice over me"

just in general the idea that, despite whatever relationship their ancestors have, these boys would happily sacrifice for each other unless the other literally asked them not to.

Absalom agreeing to be Vox's captive in Lucien's place and Vox doesn't know what to do with this tiny human version of Alastor? He sounds kind of like Alastor, and even kinda looks like him, except Absalom actually has updated to modern technology and listens to him? He critiques Vox frequently, but he offers it constructively. "I just don't know how well this plan was thought through. Have you tried asking a small child if it sounds good? If the child says it just sounds cool, maybe put it through the chopping board a few more times; Lucien's had a few sales plans in the past that have been like that too. Just think it over a few more times, it's got potential."

Chasseur currently sits somewhere between human and deer

he started as a deer, but he's so completely different from them now that they definitely don't recognize him as one of them. He's some kind of creature that can just look like them sometimes.

meanwhile to humans, Chasseur is either a completely inhuman creature, OR maybe he's a human that can turn into a deer-like....thing.

He's had a hundred years to learn how humans work. And he has to integrate with them sometimes, after all. When New Orleans flooded around the time Katrina hit, he probably even helped some humans escape solely because he was bored and he could. As for the truly foregone humans he found....well, those were meals. But people just stranded by water? Well, he's a benevolent king of his territory, isn't he? He can help them out, they're so helpless to such minor things, it's cute.

So we kind of hit the monster territory for Chasseur. Not close enough to his initial animal mindset to be recognized, but also not human enough to be properly integrated with society.

I bet when he talks to other deer, they respond to him as a polite note. Not because he's a deer. He's someone who can talk to them, even if some part of him wants to bc he knows at one point he WAS a deer? But the other deer know he's not a deer anymore. Not really.

If Chasseur had enough downtime, the loneliness of being such a bizarre cryptid might even get to him.

Vox is face to face with a naked Alastor look-alike that keeps touching him and examining him left and right. Chasseur thinks he's shiny and loves how it buzzes when he licks the TV head.

Chasseur loves the aesthetics of modern technology even if he doesn't know how to use any of it. It's pretty. Vox is pretty. Every time Vox makes a spark he loves it, it's beautiful.

Vox almost humors Chasseur, thinking of him like a pet that just happens to be able to look human, but Chasseur thinks it's hilarious. If Vox wants to treat him like a pet in that he feeds him treats and whatnot, sure.

But he's not a pet. He's a wild animal.

And he's a hundred years old.

And he has this buzzing in his head that has allowed him to slip into human society when he wants. He's talked to other deer, but they don't know how he does it. They're so simplistic in comparison to him. It's like he's not properly a deer anymore. Whatever power was imbued in Alastor's body got passed on to Chasseur, so now he's neither human nor animal, but something else entirely.

Humans have tried to curry favor with his human form. Animals have tried to curry favor with his animal form- to the animals, he feels like a human keeper, ruling over them with his grasp on organization and hunting and human patterns. But the humans think of him as an animal, an impulsive creature with no morals. He has morals! He just doesn't think of eating food to be a moral quandary???? (And the other deer don't even know what a moral quandary is, smh.)

So Chasseur is greatly offended that Vox also thinks of him as only an animal. He likes the treats, and the scratches behind the ears, and the fact that he lets Chasseur relax in his lap sometimes....but it's not because he sees him as a person. He found this person in his swamp! Took him to his house and found him food and drink and clothes! Doesn't that make Vox....HIS pet?

"I'm nobody's fucking pet!" "And I'm not your pet either. I rule this swamp." Silence. "So let's start over, friend- they call me Chasseur." ".......Vox."

Chasseur is excited to tell the other animals he has a friend. The gators think Vox is a pet, and wonder if he'll let them eat him. No???? If anyone's going to eat Vox, it's gonna be him??? He's keeping this human, and if he dies again, Chasseur will eat him. Simple. But really, Vox is a friend. The deer watch him bring Vox food and lick him and snort and bump his head frequently and are like

he was originally a white-tailed deer! probably the runt of his herd, and they ordinarily only live about 5-6 years, maybe 10 if they're lucky. (they can reach upwards of 16 in captivity) so pre-magic Chasseur had effectively lived most of his life on the corpses Alastor accidentally fed him.

Deer are opportunistic omnivores, meaning they usually only eat meat to supplement their diets or in emergencies when they need extra protein and nutrients and they typically only eat small animals like birds or rats. You could, under totally normal circumstances, see a deer devour a squirrel whole. They're also known for feasting on the piles of guts left behind by hunters sometimes. Chasseur being a deer eating meat is actually not one of the weird traits about him.

Chasseur doesn't like gators bc the ones he grew up around were territorial and ate most of the good food before he could get to it. Now he's bigger than them, he likes to think of himself as a good "person" bc he gives part of his prey to the gators.

Chasseur's human form resembles Alastor's human body, save for a few details such as his eyes being green and having vitiligo markings matching the spots and marks of his deer body, including a white patch extending from the lower back almost to the back of his thighs as a representation of his tail. If he so chooses, he can probably still conjure his tail, but the human who looked like this didn't have a tail so Chasseur just doesn't think about it much in human form.

Chasseur straight up steals things in human form, but it's not exactly like people can do much about it. A man walks into your shop and just grabs an armful of ice cream or apples and walks out. If you grab him, he can manhandle you with a single hand, and his eyes glow with the fires of hell, and nothing about him feels natural. A CRYPTID just walked in and stole food from your store, are you REALLY going to follow that up?

Chasseur lives in Alastor's old cabin. It's been left alone mostly because the cryptid deer has been seen around it and maybe city hall wants to do something but the locals aren't touching it. He mostly wears the clothes left behind in the cabin, but sometimes he has to steal clothes too. He is still trying to figure out how currency works.

but then i didn't

in the bayous of New Orleans, just out of town, in the older quarters, they say there wanders a deer they've come to call Le Chasseur, "The Hunter". The deer has been seen wandering about for a hundred years, and it's unmistakable

it's large, it's dark, its eyes are large and green and glow in the dark

it hunts slowly, but it will never feed until it's certain you're dead. If you encounter it while you're injured, your blood will draw it in but it will simply stand there and watch you. It will wait for you to die as long as possible. As though the deer knows it can have any meal it wants, it's abandoned the thought of only eating meat as an emergency. It prefers meat. It wants yours, but it's patient. It can wait. It can wait as long as necessary.

They say it can even change form into a monster, or a human. But it watches and waits regardless which form it takes.

But why does Le Chasseur exist?

Well....

Absalom and Lucien created Vtuber models that look almost exactly like Alastor and Vox

They're actually called Sommeil Nuit and Vox Machina and nickname their show Nox and Vox. They're indie, not corpo, so everyone knows what they look like and they perform as themselves frequently

How shook they'd be to find out their Granduncle/Great Grandfather look exactly like their Vtuber characters. What were the ODDS?

Extra fun fact: bc Absalom is the one involved in more traditional theater, he's the one who makes their Vtuber costumes and props and he hates when fans get too handsy bc his radio staff is DELICATE and he's probably had to remake Vox's TV head mask like five times bc people keep touching and grabbing and even kissing it sometimes. It has electronics in there, man! Lights and circuits and fans so Lucien can breathe and not overheat, you guys need to stop grabbing at him. He knows, the TV man is hot, but every time Absalom has to remake the mask it's an extra one to two weeks of work. Could you just, like....try to tear his shirt open instead or something? The clothes are way easier to repair.