Power information: the Oricalchos
Upon his power update, Alastair was granted the power he used to have when he served as a henchman for the sorcerer Dartz, the Oricalchos. However, because the Porter changes spirit and occult powers into superpowers, there are some significant differences in how it will work for him now compared to how it was back in the day.
In canon, the Oricalchos was a power derived from a meteorite that smashed into the island of Atlantis thousands of years ago, a dark power which corrupted everyone who came into contact with it. People were turned into monsters, and Dartz himself became possessed by the source of the power. That enabled him to live for nearly ten thousand years, preserving him and giving him the dark magic abilities he needed in order to carry out the Oricalchos' true goal: utter destruction of the world. Two worlds, in essence, because the dominion of monsters opposed him in the war that led to the downfall of Atlantis and would be instrumental in the resurrection of the Leviathan who could destroy both worlds.
When Dartz deigned to choose people to do his bidding, he gave them a shard of the meteorite to wear on their person, which would in turn possess them as well. It wasn't a complete possession, but it bestowed on them the ability to use the Seal of Oricalchos to trap souls, as well as enhanced dark magic to carry out a few other tasks. The three young men Dartz had in his inner circle, who he groomed personally to have the skills and abilities to take down the three legendary dragons when and if they arose, were the most adept at using the Seal. Alastair was one of them. In canon, he wielded the Seal in the form of a card he carried in his deck, which, if played in a duel, would change the duel to a real battle of magic wherein the loser forfeited his or her soul. The Oricalchos formed a mystical seal on the battlefield, trapping the duelists inside it and keeping interfering spectators out. It also changed the rules of the duel, allowing Alastair to keep more monsters on the field than usually would be legal, increasing their attack power, and preventing any other cards from destroying the Seal itself. He fought Kaiba twice - the first time, to a tie in which neither soul was taken, and the second time, he was defeated and lost his soul.
The Oricalchos was a dark power that fed off the darkness in a person's soul. If they were completely pure of heart, they could resist it, but even people who seemed more or less decent could be overcome by it. Those harboring a lot of anger, hatred, and ambition, like Alastair, were deeply possessed by it but also were able to then use it to greater effect. The Oricalchos enhanced his dark emotions, making him meaner and colder and able to perform violent acts that he normally might have shied away from, because it took the darkness in his soul and magnified it. That was why Alastair was able to use the Oricalchos to perform other magic besides just soul-taking: on board the KaibaCorp plane, during the second duel, his volatile emotions exploded out of control and he used the power to blow out all the windows and short out the autopilot. After a second burst of rage, he also blew out one of the engines in an attempt to crash the plane. Additionally, Alastair was able to use the Oricalchos to enter Kaiba's mind and show him his own memories, like an elaborate interactive hallucination, so Kaiba could experience first-hand what it was like for him as a child when war destroyed his home and his best friends.
Because powers get changed by the Porter, the Oricalchos in the City will not be an occult power, and will not feed off the darkness of anyone's soul. It will be an inherent power, not contained in a stone - because Alastair's stone was destroyed when the pharaoh defeated Dartz, the one Alastair wears now is just a green glass fake. It will have two facets: soul-taking, and limited telekinesis. There will be no mind-influence or hallucinating memories anymore.
Soul-taking: if Alastair wields a Seal of Oricalchos card, in a duel or not, he can capture someone's soul. If it happens in a duel, the duel has to be won by him in order for him to take the soul. Outside of a duel, if he just flashes it, and the opponent has no dueling skill to save themselves, the soul is automatically taken. This leaves the person's body in a coma while the soul is outside it, and the soul itself is stored within the card, projecting an image of the person onto the face of the card. There is, however, a limit: the soul can only be kept for 72 hours maximum. Alastair himself can choose to release the soul from the card at any point, and if the card is destroyed, the soul is immediately set free. But if neither of these things happens, the soul is automatically released after 72 hours - a side-effect of the world they're in. The soul is not damaged, but the person may feel some pain at the moment the soul is ripped out of the body. The card must be used to capture the soul - Alastair can't just do it whenever he feels like it. If he gets his hands on spell-card blanks, any of them will act as storage for souls, so he can take more than one in any 72-hour period.
Telekinesis: this is highly limited in two senses: it can only be done under duress, when Alastair is angry or afraid or otherwise stressed to the breaking point, and it is only destructive. He can't lift or move objects, all he can do is destroy them. This includes shorting out electrical systems - such as the autopilot function or working engine on a plane. Minor anger or upset will enable him to have a little more control over the specifics of what he does, such as what he can target, but if he's in a complete rage, everything in the area is vulnerable to be lashed by arcs of green energy and destroyed. However, this power is dependent both on his emotional state and the use of the Oricalchos, so he won't be able to train himself to use it under any other circumstances.
Additionally, there is a final safeguard on the use or abuse of the Oricalchos: Alastair's own psyche. He has technically been free of the Oricalchos for over three years, and with the restoration of certain memories, he knows what his deeds led to and how it all shook out at the end. He harbors regret for some of his actions, but not all. At the end of his second duel with Kaiba, he somewhat repented by allowing Kaiba to make a final move to end the duel, sacrificing his own soul so that Kaiba could go free and keep the plane from crashing and killing them all. He has been vaguely trying to live a "better" life, to atone for what he did under the influence of the Oricalchos and prove to himself that he wasn't a failure of a brother. It will take him a while to discover the power, and when he does, he will be extremely loathe to use it unless absolutely necessary. He will assume that it still has the old ability to corrupt him and inflame his darkest emotions, something he doesn't want, so he will avoid it until/unless it becomes clear that it isn't the actual Oricalchos.
When the Oricalchos is a factor in a fight or duel, the green seal will appear on Alastair's forehead, and the Seal will map itself out on the ground beneath their feet. Anyone else in the area will be thrust outside of the Seal's area as if behind a bubble or shield until the Seal takes a soul. Alastair's soul is also vulnerable to be taken, if he happens to lose a duel while the Seal is in play. Anyone with an occult background may recognize the Seal as the Unicursal Hexagram invented by Aleister Crowley and make any fourth-walling connections they wish. Practitioners of any kind of Dark magic may be pinged by the Oricalchos when it is in use if they want, but Alastair will not generally give off an aura of being possessed by Dark magic because he isn't.
Signers of all persuasions will not be able to sense that he has it when he's normal, but if he's using it, then their Signer marks will react - they will know that it's something otherworldly. This is mainly to keep some connection with canon, since it comes from an eerily similar origin to the Signers and their gods.
Questions? Please comment!
In canon, the Oricalchos was a power derived from a meteorite that smashed into the island of Atlantis thousands of years ago, a dark power which corrupted everyone who came into contact with it. People were turned into monsters, and Dartz himself became possessed by the source of the power. That enabled him to live for nearly ten thousand years, preserving him and giving him the dark magic abilities he needed in order to carry out the Oricalchos' true goal: utter destruction of the world. Two worlds, in essence, because the dominion of monsters opposed him in the war that led to the downfall of Atlantis and would be instrumental in the resurrection of the Leviathan who could destroy both worlds.
When Dartz deigned to choose people to do his bidding, he gave them a shard of the meteorite to wear on their person, which would in turn possess them as well. It wasn't a complete possession, but it bestowed on them the ability to use the Seal of Oricalchos to trap souls, as well as enhanced dark magic to carry out a few other tasks. The three young men Dartz had in his inner circle, who he groomed personally to have the skills and abilities to take down the three legendary dragons when and if they arose, were the most adept at using the Seal. Alastair was one of them. In canon, he wielded the Seal in the form of a card he carried in his deck, which, if played in a duel, would change the duel to a real battle of magic wherein the loser forfeited his or her soul. The Oricalchos formed a mystical seal on the battlefield, trapping the duelists inside it and keeping interfering spectators out. It also changed the rules of the duel, allowing Alastair to keep more monsters on the field than usually would be legal, increasing their attack power, and preventing any other cards from destroying the Seal itself. He fought Kaiba twice - the first time, to a tie in which neither soul was taken, and the second time, he was defeated and lost his soul.
The Oricalchos was a dark power that fed off the darkness in a person's soul. If they were completely pure of heart, they could resist it, but even people who seemed more or less decent could be overcome by it. Those harboring a lot of anger, hatred, and ambition, like Alastair, were deeply possessed by it but also were able to then use it to greater effect. The Oricalchos enhanced his dark emotions, making him meaner and colder and able to perform violent acts that he normally might have shied away from, because it took the darkness in his soul and magnified it. That was why Alastair was able to use the Oricalchos to perform other magic besides just soul-taking: on board the KaibaCorp plane, during the second duel, his volatile emotions exploded out of control and he used the power to blow out all the windows and short out the autopilot. After a second burst of rage, he also blew out one of the engines in an attempt to crash the plane. Additionally, Alastair was able to use the Oricalchos to enter Kaiba's mind and show him his own memories, like an elaborate interactive hallucination, so Kaiba could experience first-hand what it was like for him as a child when war destroyed his home and his best friends.
Because powers get changed by the Porter, the Oricalchos in the City will not be an occult power, and will not feed off the darkness of anyone's soul. It will be an inherent power, not contained in a stone - because Alastair's stone was destroyed when the pharaoh defeated Dartz, the one Alastair wears now is just a green glass fake. It will have two facets: soul-taking, and limited telekinesis. There will be no mind-influence or hallucinating memories anymore.
Soul-taking: if Alastair wields a Seal of Oricalchos card, in a duel or not, he can capture someone's soul. If it happens in a duel, the duel has to be won by him in order for him to take the soul. Outside of a duel, if he just flashes it, and the opponent has no dueling skill to save themselves, the soul is automatically taken. This leaves the person's body in a coma while the soul is outside it, and the soul itself is stored within the card, projecting an image of the person onto the face of the card. There is, however, a limit: the soul can only be kept for 72 hours maximum. Alastair himself can choose to release the soul from the card at any point, and if the card is destroyed, the soul is immediately set free. But if neither of these things happens, the soul is automatically released after 72 hours - a side-effect of the world they're in. The soul is not damaged, but the person may feel some pain at the moment the soul is ripped out of the body. The card must be used to capture the soul - Alastair can't just do it whenever he feels like it. If he gets his hands on spell-card blanks, any of them will act as storage for souls, so he can take more than one in any 72-hour period.
Telekinesis: this is highly limited in two senses: it can only be done under duress, when Alastair is angry or afraid or otherwise stressed to the breaking point, and it is only destructive. He can't lift or move objects, all he can do is destroy them. This includes shorting out electrical systems - such as the autopilot function or working engine on a plane. Minor anger or upset will enable him to have a little more control over the specifics of what he does, such as what he can target, but if he's in a complete rage, everything in the area is vulnerable to be lashed by arcs of green energy and destroyed. However, this power is dependent both on his emotional state and the use of the Oricalchos, so he won't be able to train himself to use it under any other circumstances.
Additionally, there is a final safeguard on the use or abuse of the Oricalchos: Alastair's own psyche. He has technically been free of the Oricalchos for over three years, and with the restoration of certain memories, he knows what his deeds led to and how it all shook out at the end. He harbors regret for some of his actions, but not all. At the end of his second duel with Kaiba, he somewhat repented by allowing Kaiba to make a final move to end the duel, sacrificing his own soul so that Kaiba could go free and keep the plane from crashing and killing them all. He has been vaguely trying to live a "better" life, to atone for what he did under the influence of the Oricalchos and prove to himself that he wasn't a failure of a brother. It will take him a while to discover the power, and when he does, he will be extremely loathe to use it unless absolutely necessary. He will assume that it still has the old ability to corrupt him and inflame his darkest emotions, something he doesn't want, so he will avoid it until/unless it becomes clear that it isn't the actual Oricalchos.
When the Oricalchos is a factor in a fight or duel, the green seal will appear on Alastair's forehead, and the Seal will map itself out on the ground beneath their feet. Anyone else in the area will be thrust outside of the Seal's area as if behind a bubble or shield until the Seal takes a soul. Alastair's soul is also vulnerable to be taken, if he happens to lose a duel while the Seal is in play. Anyone with an occult background may recognize the Seal as the Unicursal Hexagram invented by Aleister Crowley and make any fourth-walling connections they wish. Practitioners of any kind of Dark magic may be pinged by the Oricalchos when it is in use if they want, but Alastair will not generally give off an aura of being possessed by Dark magic because he isn't.
Signers of all persuasions will not be able to sense that he has it when he's normal, but if he's using it, then their Signer marks will react - they will know that it's something otherworldly. This is mainly to keep some connection with canon, since it comes from an eerily similar origin to the Signers and their gods.
Questions? Please comment!