Thursday, January 8, 2009

All about one of my characters: Vashuss

Simple and inexperienced. Malleable and naive. Confused and twisted. Vashuss is a minor villain in book 6 onward, making an appearance near the end. He is (at least, he appears to be) a metal centipede the size of a small elephant with a big head. He is supposed to be a mindless killing machine in the service of Mhaldin. Vashuss was gifted to him by Usor'an to serve the boy as his mount. Vashuss is supposed to have an artificial mind, which accounts for his gullibility.
Vashuss says very little, speaking through a free moving holographic projection that has its own voice. In this was, Vashuss essentially has two bodies. His centipede-like metal body had twelve long, flexible limbs that pull him along quite nicely. Because he is a machine he is treated likewise, shown no friendship by Mhaldin and worked nearly to death.
The truth is, Vashuss is not a machine but a hyper-intellectual infant who is stored inside the machine's giant head. Vashuss controls the machine with his mind. Mhaldin does not know it, but Vashuss is actually his bastard son, the mother of whom is Usor'an's daughter. This is significant because now Fenera's nephew is the main villain's grandson. She thought fighting her brother would be bad.

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