new pokemon verse tag.

thinking about how kaguya's family probably had a very.... Complicated relationship with the law and government up until relatively recently in the grand scheme of things. They definitely valued their independence, especially when public opinion and governing attitudes towards aura users and the likes (at least, those who weren't affiliated With the government) was rarely ever super positive. sometimes they were ignored by virtue of being relatively harmless and even, you know, helpful. and others... well, a clan of powerful warriors is a blatant threat. Obviously. never mind that they're minding their own business as a group that has not necessarily always been accepted by society.

mini meta: Kaguya's prosthetic

As is probably pretty evident now from the art, Kaguya has a prosthetic right leg.

Functionally speaking, the construction is pretty minimalistic in order to enable ease of access for cleaning and other such maintenance. The prosthetic itself (or at least the base of it; the remainder can, in theory, be removed, but that's a bit complicated due to joints and such) is fused to her body, which is the only way it really works - it's, in d&d terms, essentially an attuned item, and is magically powered. The benefit of it being magic rather than mechanical, however, is that it requires minimal maintenance. There are no wires or other such internal components that need replacement or a high tier of expertise to repair should something go wrong - the most maintenance she typically needs to do is keeping it clean, and most anyone with some skill in engineering and/or artificery could repair it pretty easily should anything break... in theory. The prosthetic itself is made from the ever-classic fantastic metal adamatine, which is the ideal combination of lightweight and durable for an adventurer's prosthetic, but it is also rare and expensive.

Despite being pretty cutting edge for her world, it is still somewhat limited - obviously, metal joints aren't really going to be as flexible or versatile as muscle is, so she does sacrifice some agility. (Which is fine by her. Agility was never her strong suit to begin with.) She also doesn't have any sense of feeling in the leg - engineering, magical or otherwise, was nowhere near advanced enough in her world to enable something like that. She's gotten used to it enough to where that's no longer a huge problem for her, but she does tend to have a bit more trouble on uneven terrain than the average person as a result.

Verse Description: Pokémon

Faller. That's what they called her when she arrived. Something about an "Ultra Wormhole"—a phrase she could only assume referred to the portal between the worlds that she found herself arriving through.

Everything about her seemed to change to adapt to this world. Even Starfluff changed shape, going from a griffon to... some kind of strange bird? (Altaria, she later learned it was called.) Where she had once been a practitioner of magic, she now had a strange new set of skills. They called her an "Aura User," an awfully literal name, if you asked her. The only thing that seemed to remain the same was Onus; a rather comedic fact, given how rare weapons seemed to be in this world.

With nowhere else to go, Kaguya decided to take up the Interpol's offer for work. She passed their exams with flying colors—turns out that "demigod slayer" was the exact resume they were looking for. Being from a world where she had to fight the monsters herself, she was more than prepared for any physical standards they upheld. And, frankly, their rules were far easier to parse than the Administration and their secret histories had been in her previous world.

Kaguya now serves as a special agent for the Interpol and travels the world, conducting investigations into phenomenon involving legendary pokémon and potential world-endangering threats. (The more things change...) She is slowly learning to master her new "aura" abilities—though it's not dissimilar from the magic she's accustomed to, it remains just different enough to feel foreign. And, of course, she still carries Onus—however rare it is to see her unsheathe, much less wield it. The Interpol should pity the villain she finally does bring her blade against.

Meta: Clothing

For Visualization Purposes in threads: Kaguya generally has one of three general outfits that she wears depending on the setting. (Outside of pokéverse, where she has a Work Uniform.)

Fantasy (euro/western, high fantasy type settings; your D&Ds and such). As pictured in my icon, this is Kaguya's default with some variation in certain situations (opting for a full skirt in more Traditional(TM) places, for example, or removing her armor when necessary.) For her right eye, she typically uses a cloth wrap under her helmet. D&D Specific fun facts: she has adamantine plate and her little half-cape is a cloak of displacement.

Fantasy (Japan-or otherwise east-Asian based settings—think Okami, Ge/nshin). Note that the token example is for a younger version of kaguya from a oneshot, BUT: generally speaking, if Kaguya recognizes a region as being similar enough to her sort of native stomping grounds of her world (read: culturally based on Japan or East Asia), she typically wears clothing similar to that shown above. The hat is a key component as it generally obscures her face enough that she doesn't have to answer too many questions about why her face glows. Her prosthetic looks the same, and depending on the setting in question she may, again, opt for a longer hakama/skirt to cover it, as well as her tattoo. Additionally, her eyepatch is less plain: it resembles a small flower. (See below; she may or may not also wear those hairpins)

bonus fun fact: that eyepatch was from Cordelia. That bitch.

modern and sci-fi settings (self explanatory. god i love this token.) The story behind how this outfit happened is nonsense without a lot of context so just trust me when I say I swear to god there's a reason for hot cyberpunk Kaguya, okay? Anyway, in these settings, Kaguya will typically opt for something similar to the above outfit, if not just use it outright. She may swap for a jacket that covers her up a bit more, but also... look, she's not gonna lie, she does think it's a pretty good look on her. She'll generally use a plain black or white eyepatch. In most modern settings, she also keeps her hair dyed. I think it's almost a psychological thing at this point—it sort of helps her to keep a certain mental distance from her old world.

Meta - PKMN - Interpol.

Formally, the division Kaguya belongs to within the Interpol is named the Legendary Phenomenon Division. It was officially formed some time following the events of SwSh—after which it became abundantly clear that the standard divisions dealing with organized crime was simply not cutting it, and the manipulation, abuse, and sometimes even mere existence of certain Legendary Pokémon (cough Eternatus) posed a very real existential threat to the world. Their primary purpose is to keep tabs on known (and unknown, publically) Legendary Pokémon, the people (protagonists) who may or may not capture or otherwise interact with them, and potential threats posed to or by them. Most of this division is made up of an internal research team, but there are a small handful of special field agents, like Kaguya, who must fulfill a generally very high standard of fitness and, more critically, skill. Why?

Well, the fact that internally, it's been nicknamed the godkiller division probably gives you a hint. Field Agents, at least "special" field agents, like Kaguya, need to be equipped to be able to "handle" threats should they arise, even if that is sort of the worst-case scenario.

Unsurprisingly, there's significant overlap between Legendary Phenomenons and the UB divisions. Given Kaguya is, technically, a Faller, she likely would've been put on the UB division like Anabel if not for the fact that 1. UBs are considerably less of an active concern now that the Situation in Alola has had time to return to (semi) normal and 2. she's kind of the ideal candidate for the so-called godkiller division.

Likewise, they still work pretty closely with the Organized Crime division, as you would expect, though largely in the way of supplying information more than any direct interaction between agents. (Think of it like this: if Organized Crime shows up at the Galactic HQ, then Legendary Phenomenon would be the ones to go to Spear Pillar.)

As far as being in Interpol goes, Kaguya.... is ultimately pretty neutral on it. She wasn't really given much of a choice in the matter given she is, uh, a really weird Faller case. And weighing the options, the promise of a job and a proper introduction to this world was definitely a better option than winging it on her own when she didn't even know what the fuck an Altaria was. (Sidebar: she's still terrible at identifying most pokemon. Like, idk, it's some kind of fucken bird...........) She is a bit miffed on a more impersonal level about the circumstances just generally kind of sucking (she is doomed to an eternity of being a gd adventurer when all she wants is to RELAX for like FIVE FUCKING MINUTES), but she tries not to let it bother her that much.

Meta: Misc Facts

Some tidbits that aren't exactly bio-relevant / don't fit anywhere, but are worth noting nonetheless.

Kaguya is missing her right leg and eye. For unknown reasons, she was unable to regenerate them with magic; she believes this is due to how she lost them, in the aftermath of a fight with one of the Phantasms, as they were known to have unusual powers that could seemingly prevent resurrection and regeneration spells. (She died. But she got better.)

Cordelia, one of the Phantasms she battled (and personally finished off) was a former member of her party, going by the name of Red. There is a reason she does not like to talk about that fight. She's still not over the betrayal.

Kaguya had a younger brother in her world. She does not know what became of him. This is a large part of the reason she is inclined towards caring for those younger than her; she misses her kid brother dearly.

Kaguya keeps a dedicated journal/travelogue. This also includes details of her previous world, as well as her encounters in any new ones she's come to. Unless she gives you permission, do not touch it unless you wish to lose a hand.

Kaguya has a full sleeve tattoo on her right arm that continues onto her back of a eastern style gold dragon. Gold dragons were one of the symbols associated with her Order; allegedly, the first Kaguya had befriended a gold dragon and it allowed the early Order to make their home in its territory. In exchange for its protection, the Order would bring it magical artifacts and knowledge, which was the beginning of the archives. It was a running joke in the Order that the active Head Archivist was secretly a dragon in disguise.

Meta: Reflected Memories

The treasure of the Order of the Moon, passed from generation to generation of its leaders. Reflected Memories is a polished bronze shield with a mirror finish. Engraved upon its surface are images of the enemies its past wielders have bested in battle. It can impart memories of past triumphs unto its bearer, granting them knowledge in battle. Each ring of engravings represents a different wielder, with its present bearer being the center. It seems to have an endless capacity for detail.

Notable images within Kaguya's ring include the Phantasms she faced in an effort to prevent the destruction of her world: Cain, the Harbinger ; Imelda, the Dreamer ; Maalik, the Wanderer ; Cordelia, the Mirage ; and Inilista, the Mother. All appear as humans. If asked, she will gladly discuss any of them except Cordelia.

It is Kaguya's second-most prized possession, after Onus. In her pokémon verse, Reflected Memories instead appears as a small locket she carries on her person. (She herself is uncertain as to why this is the case.)

Inspirations: Yata no Kagami (japanese folklore), Shield of Heroic Memories (the adventure zone: balance)

Bonus: Homebrew stats. +1 shield, requires attunement. Grants +1 to attacks against monsters the bearer has previously faced while wielding this shield; the user must have the shield equipped to benefit from this effect.

Kaguya, on principle, doesn't fight people (unless it's absolutely necessary / in self defense.) Humans can be nasty, but her job is dealing with the bigger, older, even nastier things out there.

additonally: kaguya is still pretty crazy tough. since her clan has been around for longer than the formal Aura Guardian order, they've managed to collect a lot more oral tradition and techniques—not only is she trained to fight, she's trained to fight with her abilities in mind. I'm still working out the full extent of what she can do but because I am (literally at this moment) reading One Piece, I think one of her abilities is similar to the conqueror's haki, but like. For pokémon. An Ability that allows her to subdue/incapacitate (albeit briefly) very large pokémon by just sort of like... exerting her Aura over them. it doesn't affect most humans because of their lack of aura sensitivity, I think. I think their clan also has swords that are made of a particular alloy that allows them to channel aura through it more freely. While the people of her clan are now dead, she is doing what she can to maintain their ancestral home and working to preserve the information they've collected in the hopes that it will continue to get passed on to future generations of aura users, even if she isn't successful in rebuilding.

I think, more than anything, Yuuki is desperate to be acknowledged. It's fair to say that Kaguya very literally was not present for her brother when she needed to be. That's not entirely her fault—with the options presented to her, she made what she felt was the best choice. Staying in relative safety was only ever going to be a stopgap, and one that wasn't even fully guaranteed to work. Attempting to find a way to remove the curse on their family was the only option that, in any long-term, was going to solve anything.

And to her credit, she did try. She kept in constant communication with her brother via letters. She tried very hard to make sure he never felt like she'd forgotten about him. But, like, Yuuki is still a kid. He went through a lot of trauma in a very short time, losing his family and community and being uprooted from his whole life. He didn't really have anyone to lean on in the way that he needed. He ended up being pretty isolated from the other kids his age because - well, it's kind of hard to go on with his life as though nothing had happened and that his circumstances were normal. He tried his best, but ultimately, he was very lonely for a long time.

I don't think Kaguya is unaware of this, but I also don't know if she knows the full extent of it. The circumstances they're currently in don't necessarily make it any easier, either.

What Yuuki wants most is having people in his life who see and understand how fucking hard he's trying. Especially his sister. He wants to be the first priority without feeling like a burden. He's torn between wanting to be independent and taken seriously for all the shit he's been through, but needing to just... get to be a kid, and be free from the stress of it all every once in a while.

character intro: yuuki tsukino

Yuuki, age 14, Kaguya's younger brother and apprentice, of sorts. When the curse hit their order, Yuuki was too young to have had much training and was sent by his sister to attend school in one of the great capitals of their world where, presumably, he would be (relatively) safe from the curse's effects.

Though his sole guardian, his sister, was abroad in search of a way to lift their curse, she was far from absent, writing him frequently with tales of her adventures. As a final granted to her by her diety, Kaguya was able to reach through space and pull her younger brother into her demiplane before the destruction of their home world.

Yuuki is a budding sorcerer, though not especially powerful as of yet. He still relies on his sister's magic to come and go from their pocket dimension home. Usually, he's accompanied by a friendly familiar - Starfluff, Kaguya's loyal mount and magic made manifest, in the form of a cat - which allows him to move between the worlds alongside his elder sister.

kaguya is a watchers paladin functionally but her actual oath/tenants are closer to an ancients paladin (hence why the blog url is the name for the homebrew subclass I almost made for her, the oath of moonlight. shes kind of both and neither official subclass.)

more than anything, what kaguya wants is to find a sense of purpose. though she's still altruistic, the whole "saving people in the name of the greater good" thing is very hollow to her now. she did that and she still lost everything. she's lost her drive, and without it she just feels empty.

meta: relationships

It's safe to say that Kaguya is... not super keen about pursing any sort of relationships in whatever world(s) she ends up in. Nothing serious, anyway. She likes to joke that her love life is just as cursed as she is, considering her two biggest relationships... well, they're complicated.

The first was Katsurou, a long-time friend and one of Kaguya's original teammates, before the downfall of the order. Katsuro was a samurai (fighter, samurai subclass) and one of Kaguya's best friends. They had a long history together and you could basically consider them high school sweethearts. He was the last surviving member of their original party after the curse struck. Kaguya wanted them to go off together in search of a way to lift the curse, while Katsurou... having all his friends and family die around him made him less inclined. He tried to convince Kaguya to give up and abandon the adventuring life instead, where they might be able to live more safely. Kaguya was not so keen on this idea, and to put it simply. They didn't part on the best of terms. (Both of them wound up regretting this.) Three years later, after a lot of very unsuccessful efforts to lift the curse, Kaguya tried to locate him again in the hope of finding some help and maybe also apologizing for some of the shit she'd said when they last parted. She found out pretty quickly thereafter that: 1. he had also been searching for her; 2. he was dead, and; 3. his soul had been stolen and turned into a monster controlled by one of the phantasms. She ended up having to kill said monster, so it's safe to say that particular relationship ended quite poorly.

The second was Phoebus (fighter, echo knight), and the whole thing was immensely more complicated, mainly due to the fact that there's some time bullshit involved. They were initially less friends and more rivals. And also kind of couldn't stand one another, at least initially. But they were brought together by a mutual friend and did respect one another's skills, so... somewhat friendly rivalry? Or that was the case until an extremely complicated series of events that I do not have time to explain resulted in him going to the dark side, getting killed, and all memory of him being erased from the current timeline, after which he was replaced with a version of himself from another timeline. Like I said, immensely complicated. But in that world, Phoebus and Kaguya had a much less contentious relationship. One might even call them friends. So, being re-introduced to Phoebus for what she thought was the first time, they hit it off much better this time. Albeit with some awkwardness, considering this Phoebus had a Kaguya in his original timeline who this Kaguya was not, and Kaguya had a very detailed journal of her travels that mentioned Phoebus before, but... in a far less positive light. Nonetheless, they were kind of in a relationship - insofar as the adventuring lifestyle would allow - until the point at which they had to part ways, as Kaguya's quest for answers was taking her in a different direction. Still, being that they were adventurers, they both assumed they would reunite again in the near-ish future, because adventurers tend to run in smaller circles than you would think. They were correct, but not in a good way. Turns out Phoebus was a Phantasm and went dark side, again. And thus Kaguya had to kill another of her exes.

Paired with the loss of her closest friends and remaining family, Kaguya is... understandably averse to allowing herself to have any serious feelings for most people, romantic or otherwise.

meta: celestial heritage

As anyone familiar with d&d probably knows how this works, but in the interest of explaining to those who have never cracked the player's handbook (good for you btw): Kaguya is an Aasimar, which means she is decended from a being from the celestial plane (a deity, an angel, something to that effect).

Aasimar were known to crop up from time to time within the order of the moon, but were still rather uncommon. One maybe every century or so. A child being born as an aasimar was considered extremely fortunate—superstition had it that child would go on to do great things. So, needless to say, there were some high expectations for Kaguya from day one.

(Bonus: Kaguya's younger brother was born human—though he didn't totally miss out on the divine magic boat. He was a sorcerer, of the Divine Soul variety.)

Kaguya's name comes from her celestial ancestor, the founder of the order. Kaguya (the original one, that is), allegedly left the celestial plane to aid mortalkind in their eternal fight against the darkness, abandoning her immortality for a mortal life. Her life and story have been pretty heavily mythologized over the years, but her being a celestial of some kind is generally accepted as fact.

(Bonus 2: One of the stories about the first Kaguya claims that, while searching for somewhere to call home with her new band of followers, she came across a gold dragon's den. Kaguya, being a generally good-hearted individual, befriended the dragon, and struck a deal with it: her Order would share the knowledge and magic they accumulated as the generations carried on, and in exchange the dragon would allow them to make their home on its territory and offer them protection. It's highly debatable whether there was any truth to this story—the town the order called home was indeed in a mountainside and definitely could have hosted a dragon's lair at one point or another, but nobody could really say whether there had ever been one. It's equally likely that the dragon died or left long ago as it is that it never existed in the first place. Nonetheless, gold dragons were a common emblem used by the order, particularly its leaders. Kaguya's tattoo is of a dragon for this reason.)

Mini-Meta: Suigetsu, Kaguya's Abilties

Technically speaking, Kaguya's patron was not actually Suigetsu. It is her sword, Onus. It was Suigetsu until he took her burdens—the repressed guilt and anger over her family's fate, the lingering spirits she was carrying with her, and most importantly, the curse—and created Onus for her. That includes the magic from that curse, which was an immense amount of power. Suigetsu himself once said that the burdens she'd been carrying were incredibly powerful, and that her blade was one of the best he'd forged. All that to say—Kaguya has not lost her abilites as a paladin, despite her "patron" being dead and being set adrift from her own world.

Now, does this mean Kaguya herself is a deity? Eh, not really. But she is definitely nearing demigod status. Suigetsu, frankly, didn't have much power of his own to inherit. He had very few followers, and was nearly a forgotten god upon Kaguya's discovery of him. He himself did not know what he was a god of or even his former name—Suigetsu was the name of the sword Kaguya originally obtained that allowed her to meet him in the first place. He destroyed that sword upon forging Onus. So, like, what does that mean?

Well, since this is my city now and my DM has no power here (until I get him to admit what happened to my beloved you idiots 🥺), I choose to believe Kaguya inherited some of Suigetsu's remaining power. Again, this is more demigod powerful than actual deific powerful. Still pretty well beyond your normal mortal, but not, like, force of nature powerful. Mind you, she herself doesn't necessarily know the full extent of these abilities. The main one, however, is that In her main verse, her "home" isn't any one world, but Suigetsu's demiplane: a small pocket dimension which appears to be a very beautiful garden and shrine. She can travel between worlds freely (though I would say it takes her several months to even realize that).