Hask

Appearance
Painted-Bones looks like a skeleton, naturally. Skeleton of what? Well, that depends on who she is talking to - usually, she will match their species.

Beyond being a skeleton, Hask is literally painted. She is covered in colourful, intricate patterns, which shift in reflection of her mood. It is through these patterns that she can form expressions on her face, something which would otherwise, I imagine, be quite difficult.

Hask moves in dance-steps, in time to music audible only to her. If you ask nicely, she will sing it for you - and she has quite a fine singing voice, especially for a skeleton.

Personality
Hask is an artist. She makes her art in the medium of mortal lives, for no other medium is as expressive. An aesthetic life is one which tells a memorable and meaningful story.

Hask is fascinated by the practice of medicine. She delights in this collective struggle to overcome mortality, and she considers few things more beautiful than one person rescuing another from the edge of death. I should note that it is not that she dislikes suffering and death in itself, but rather that she is thrilled to see them challenged. She is unlikely to step in and end a plague, but the doctor still struggling to cure it even as all around her flee would likely receive a few of her many secrets. And although in another context, Hask would reward a clever trick, she despises those quacks and charlatans who have the gall to subvert the grand beautiful project of medicine.

In person, Hask is usually soft-spoken, friendly and encouraging, contrary to her frightening visage. She is prone to bursts of enthusiasm. Still, her rather alien sensibilities will show through soon enough. (I will relate an anecdote: once I stood at the bed of a dying man when Hask appeared from a shadow. She comforted this dying man, and assured him that he had ensured wealth and happiness for his children; she praised my efforts to help, and I was almost feeling proud. Still, his condition turned to the worse. I asked her if she might help me save him, and she explained in a tone of perfect sincerity that this was truly beautiful death, and interrupting would be a crime! Fortunately, the gentleman was not awake to hear it.)

Hask can be reached by painting a message on a bone, and burning it. She considers all such messages, but responds only to some, though I have tried and failed to discern any pattern describing those who succeed. Her response is not necessarily beneficial, either – if your situation can be made more interesting by introducing a further threat or complication, I would strongly advise against trying to involve the Painter of Bones.

As for that particular practice: well, Hask has quite an interest in skeletons, which is understandable, I suppose. I have attended several exhumations where the skeleton has been mysteriously decorated in much the same manner as Hask herself. Once, I saw a line of six gibbets, painted in each of the colours of the rainbow. I am led to understand that some families have taken to a ghoulish practice of boiling away the flesh of the dead and displaying the corpses of their family for the Painter to decorate. She seems to appreciate this.

Goals
Hask, as I understand it, wants to see mortals challenge themselves to ever-greater things. She appreciates dedication and daring: the architect who destroys a mountain to create a monument she will not live to see built; the thief who, overnight, steals the monument from the Emperor's palace; the general who conquers an impregnable city merely to regain it. To those bold enough to find her favour, she grants inhuman strength and good health, and arranges helpful coincidences - never outside the bounds of possibility! - to make sure their absurd venture does not fail.

She loves to force people into dramatic conflicts of character. She tries to force strongly-held principles into conflict, duties to family, morality, law, or lovers into opposition; the righteous to fall into hypocrisy, monsters to find redemption.

Now, I once had a chance to interview Hask at some length, from which I obtained some quite remarkable statements. Her long-term, grand artistic project is to make mortals end their mortality, by their own collective effort. In the meantime, she wishes to maintain the variety that keeps life interesting. She does not want to see any totalising vision imposed on the world, but in the short term, she might help a conqueror just to bring about a more beautiful battle. She tries to cause conflicts between ideological forces.

Posts relating to Hask
See also posts relating to the Variations.
 * 1) Hask 1: Red by Bryn
 * 2) Hask 2: Yellow by Bryn
 * 3) Alue, First of the Sisters by TheDarkDM
 * 4) Untitled post by kestrel404
 * 5) Hask 3: Green by Bryn
 * 6) Variations i: Hunger by Bryn
 * 7) Alue (68) by TheDarkDM
 * 8) A reluctant Sinner by kestrel404
 * 9) A Sinner for Life by kestrel404
 * 10) Hask 4: Blue by Bryn
 * 11) Alue and Sin by TheDarkDM
 * 12) Hask 5: Purple by Bryn

Creations

 * Turn 0: One Thousand Variations on a Deer (also called the Abandoned and the Variations)