The Coat

The Coat is a character in the Non-Canon battle The Fantastic Tournament: Champions Edition

Weapon/Abilities:
CRS’s greatest weapon is itself; once wrapped in it, the will of its victims depletes instantly and their personalities are overwhelmed by that of the coat’s former owner, Chester R. Sabellico. Chester is a well-meaning but severely traumatized and unstable young man; the aspects of his personality that the coat imprints reflect this, as well as the panicked state he was in at the time of his death. “Chester” is incapable of forming permanent memories in this state, and each time he manifests he starts out essentially as a blank slate, unaware that any time has passed between now and his impending death over a year ago. Despite appearances to the contrary, the coat remains in control of “Chester” at all times. He will follow its commands without knowing why or being able to resist, and is inevitably terrified to find himself in a body that is not his own. The female ones in particular seem to distress him quite a bit.

The coat is imbued with the life-sucking powers that drove its former owner out of his mind, and has either no ability or no desire to turn them off. Anything with any kind of life will find itself feeling weak in its presence; small plants and insects die almost instantly, with larger organisms going catatonic and flatlining in minutes. The effects can be warded off by numbers and strength of will, but are more or less unavoidable. This effect weakens temporarily once the coat has taken a host as it apparently focuses on that poor soul instead: the average lifespan of CRS’s victims is between 1 and 2 hours, with that time shortening or lengthening drastically according to its will.

The energy consumed by the coat goes towards fueling both its own existence and its powers. In addition to draining the vital energy from its surroundings, the coat can store and transfer the same essence from body to body: this is most commonly used for the predictable task of creating zombies and other undead minions. Completely resurrecting a body to its former wholesome state (mind, body, and soul intact) is significantly more difficult than merely animating it, as the coat prefers to do. The number of beings the coat is capable of reanimating in this way depend on how much energy it’s consumed recently, but given the extended period of time between battles in which it fed, the general answer is “a lot”.

Although not as dexterous and certainly more noticeable than when it’s possessing a host, CRS is capable of independent movement in the form of flight and a horrible sort of slithering crawl. Its ability to interact with its surroundings in this form is limited, and it’s mainly used as a way for the coat to locate a new host once the old one has been drained of life.

Description:
A plain labcoat, size M, brand and year of make unknown. Once a neat, pristine white, the coat has sustained a considerable amount of damage during its time in HS. Now closer to a filthy grey-brown in color, one sleeve ends in a ragged tangle of threads, the breast pocket has been torn off, and the hems are soaked with dirt, blood, and other unpleasant substances. Numerous stains, burns, tears, and other flaws can be found in no particular pattern on the coat’s surface. There are two especially vibrant smears that seem to resemble crude eyes on the coat’s flanks, particularly visible when the coat is in flight. Their origin and purpose are unclear, but the coat seems to fancy them so they’re likely to stick around for a while longer.

The coat’s personality is still largely unknown, as it is unable to speak when not possessing a host and communicating through the persona of “Chester”. What can be deduced from its actions seems to indicate an entity devoid of pity, remorse, and hesitation, blessed with a high level of intelligence and an animalistic cunning. It is capable of bargaining and disguising its presence and nature for extended periods of time in the interest of survival and access to further prey. On a few rare occasions it has been seen to act in apparent defense of “Chester’s” mental and physical health, although this is admittedly difficult to distinguish from simple self-defense and limited by the nature of its host’s restricted memory.

Chester, or at least the copy of him presented by the coat, is unfailingly polite and generally harmless, though regrettably prone to panic and hysteria when alarmed, which is often. Overly-eager to make friends and avoid conflict, he prefers to flee from any potential rather than face it directly. Although he is unable to disobey the commands of the coat and interprets them as his own desires, he frequently questions them, particularly when they conflict with his current course of action.

He is completely oblivious as to the coat’s control over him, and when alerted to it (as has happened a number of times) invariably flips the fuck out. Luckily for him, he doesn’t have to remember it for any longer than it takes the current host to die and the coat to leave the wasted corpse behind. A blissful existence, really, barring the constant mindless terror and extremely poor hygiene of his coat.

Backstory:
Chester R. Sabellico was a promising and highly intelligent young scientist who dedicated his career to studying what he called “vitae”, essentially the energy that comprises life. His praises were many, his enemies were few, and when he accidentally found a way to gather that same energy in himself at an uncontrollable rate it broke his stupid little heart. He was dragged into HS an instant before his “powers” kicked in, and had no prior experience on his resume for being a walking harvester of souls. During the initial rounds of the battle he managed suppress the effects through a number of oddly convenient devices found in the various round settings; it wasn’t until the fourth round (the Atlantean Necropolis) that he lost complete control. Spending much of his time stumbling around weeping and accidentally resurrecting swarms of undead fishpeople, Chester Sabellico was apparently killed off at the end of the round by a fellow contestant desperate to eliminate the source of the zombie horde. Curiously, though, his coat traveled to the next round, and in a Shocking Twist That No One Saw Coming it devoured the contestant that had killed its owner in the first post of the round.

Chester’s coat continued through the rest of the Harrowing Sorrow with little left to oppose it. It never cared about trying to form alliances, overthrow the Grandmaster, or anything that wasn’t sucking the life out of everything around it. When its last opponent shriveled to death from inside its folds, CRS accepted its victory with the unflappable grace of a piece of clothing and was sent on its way home.

The scientific enclave that Chester had come from was understandably unprepared for a ravenous necromantic labcoat, and all the personnel present perished in a matter of days. The world beyond it behaved in a similar way, and except for the occasional demon hunter, secret government force, plucky time traveler, and genre-savvy bystander it devoured everything that came across its path without relent. The repeated occurrence of “Chester” was rarely documented and explained as coincidence when it was; no permanent way of stopping the coat was ever found. It fed on the life force of hundreds of souls, unrepentant and resistant to the numerous attempts to wash it, unaware or uncaring that it would soon be entered in another battle to the death.

Tournament Information:
The Harrowing Sorrow was run by the Lachrymose as an exercise in the futility of avoiding death. Unnaturally elongated and stiff-jointed, the Lachrymose followed her contestants throughout the various rounds at a distance, a constant reminder of Death’s perpetual presence. She delivered several of the killing blows herself under the pretense that the contestants in question were far too close to the chill of death to resist it any longer. Questionable practices aside, she regarded her entrants distantly and greeted CRS’s victory with a burst of her usual sobbing. The prize promised and rewarded was the gift of immortality “excluding outside interference”; the coat returned to its homeworld ignorant of this benefit and fed heartily until its entrance into the FT.

Any alliances or rivalries formed during HS were on Chester’s part and dissolved with his death. CRS does not regard any of its former competitors with any particular level of like or dislike, though it does remember both them and the round locations with a high level of detail. Sentimentality is, regrettably, not its strong suit.