Pavlossus

Dicey Dangers, Core Rule

Game by Joel Hills

Pavlossus, Deity of Body

Pavlossus is the last of his kind. There were once many elemental beings who maintained the world's natural order together: each carrying a portion of the work, each checking the others' decisions, each present when the world required correction. They are all gone now. Pavlossus has outlasted every one of them, and he carries their combined purpose alone.

This is why he appears rarely, acts decisively, and does not explain himself. He is doing the work of an entire race by himself. He does not have time for consultation. There is no one left to consult.

Domain	Attribute	Element
Body	Body	Cold

Power	Type	Effect
Body Blessing	Attribute Blessing	+1 success on Body tests
Cold Blessing	Element Blessing	+1 success on Cold attacks / resists
Unbreakable	Divine Power	Declare when an attack would deal damage. That attack's damage is ignored entirely

History

Before Pavlossus, there were others like him: elemental guardians whose names are not recorded anywhere because they did not leave records, only consequences. Together they maintained the balance of the natural world: slowing what grew too fast, restraining what spread too far, correcting imbalances before they became catastrophes. The work was not violent by nature. Most of what they did went unnoticed.

What happened to them is not fully known. They disappeared over long centuries, some suddenly, some gradually. Pavlossus was not present for most of their endings. He is not certain what took them. He has not stopped working long enough to find out.

The tribal outfit he wears carries the patterns of his kind, not a mortal civilization, but the elemental guardians themselves. Each pattern belongs to one of them. He made the outfit when the last of them was gone and has not removed it since. It is the only record that they existed.

When the phoenixes of the Devil's Cauldron began leaving destruction wherever they flew, Pavlossus assessed the situation the way he assesses every situation: calculate the threat, determine the response, act. The phoenixes were genuine in their danger: fire spreading unpredictably near a snow-covered forest, with no ability or will to control themselves. He did not consult anyone. There was no one to consult. He traveled to the Devil's Cauldron and summoned the strongest snowstorm the world had seen.

Demetra attended every death that followed. Pavlossus is aware of this. He is also aware that she has not forgiven him. He has considered her position and found it does not change his assessment. The phoenixes were a threat. He removed the threat. He would do it again.

What he did not account for was Faustina. One hatchling, in the deepest part of the volcano, surviving. When she emerged and attacked him (a newborn phoenix striking a being who had just ended her entire species), her fire burned through his fur in a way nothing had managed before. He retreated not from the pain but from the information: there was a variable he had not calculated. He went into hibernation to consider it.

He has considered it. He has dismissed the error as a failure of incomplete data, not a failure of method. He would make the same decision again with the same information he had. He acknowledges that Faustina exists. He acknowledges that she can hurt him, and that he is the only being who can hurt her in return. They have fought several times since. They have never aimed to kill. They both understand what the other represents: Faustina is the consequence of his error, and Pavlossus is the reason she is alone. Neither of them can afford to remove the other entirely.

He hibernates between appearances, becoming a cocoon of ice crystal in some location no one has successfully tracked. He remains aware of what happens in cold environments during hibernation, connected to the ice and snow the way other beings are connected to their own bodies. When something requires his attention, he wakes. When it does not, he sleeps. He is tired in a way that is not physical, but he does not stop.

Appearance

Pavlossus is an enormous humanoid ox with blue skin. His body is covered extensively in white fur (across his beard, back, chest, and legs), which allows him to disappear entirely into heavy snowstorms. His horns and hooves are made of dense unbreakable ice, cold enough to freeze anything that makes contact with them for more than a moment.

He wears a tribal outfit worked with the patterns of his kind, each mark representing one of the elemental guardians who came before him. The outfit has been repaired many times. Some of the original patterns have faded. He has not attempted to restore them. His expression is almost always neutral, which those who have encountered him describe less as calm and more as the absence of any feeling he considers worth showing.

Abilities

Pavlossus permanently radiates a cold aura extending to the edge of his body; the ground freezes where he walks, and anything that touches him directly begins to freeze within seconds. He can extend this aura outward deliberately, but does not do so casually. He is also capable of breathing icy wind and summoning full weather events; the snowstorm at the Devil's Cauldron is the largest recorded, but not the only one he has produced.

His horns can penetrate any known material. He does not use them in situations where other approaches are available.

Most of the time, Pavlossus is in his hibernation state: a dense ice crystal cocoon that is indistinguishable from natural ice formations. He is aware of everything in his territory while in this state and will emerge when the situation requires it. He does not emerge for situations that do not.