Name: Ilya Korhonen
Age: Late twenties/Early Thirties (No Birth Records)
Codename: Gnarl
Appearance (Human): Ilya wears his past on his skin. He looks a good ten to fifteen years older than he actually is, his skin weathered and slightly wrinkled, his eyes haunted and iron-hard and his body lean with hunger but muscled from decades of constant labor. He’s decently tall, standing at around six feet. His hair is a brownish-blonde, cut short along with his roughly-trimmed beard. Oddly, his clothing is bizarrely primitive: He wears a dark green woolen jacket with large hood, pants made from some type of hide, and hand-stitched leather boots.
Appearance (Kaiju): Ilya’s Kaiju form seems to be plant-based. A hunched, crudely-humanoid form, it seems to be made out of ancient, nearly petrified wood. It’s back and limbs are coated with sodden leaves, mushrooms, lichen, and other woodland detritus, scaled up to a truly titanic size. It has no facial features, and makes no sounds except for the cracking and creaking of old wood. It’s legs terminate in roots, which flow through the ground as it walks. It’s arms end in similar roots, hanging from lumpy knots of wood where one would expect to find hands.
Kaiju Traits:
Old Growth: Gnarl is slow. Very, very, very slow. It’s also nearly unstoppable. The wood-like substance it’s made of it incredibly difficult to damage, and even if it’s damaged it leaks an odd sap that sets diamond-hard. Those wounds tend to heal over quite quickly, as well. They figured out from the deactivation of one of it’s donors that even thermobaric munitions have a hard time scorching it’s more flammable components due to some odd water-like liquid that coats it. It occasionally utilizing its roots to pick up boulders that end up moss-covered and damp, but still protective. It’s also gargantuan, even among Kaiju.
Rooted: Gnarl anchors itself to solid ground with roots thicker than trans-atlantic cables. The roots drain nutrients and water from both soil and living creatures, and the base and wooden parts of Gnarl are covered in smaller roots to dissuade attackers. The roots have been sighted tearing through just about any natural and man-made terrain to find purchase, although are much less effective in sand or wetlands. The roots hit extremely hard and if they manage to penetrate a Kaiju can dessicated or otherwise cause significant internal damage.
Lumbering Garden: Though rarely utilized in actual combat, Gnarl is actually quite useful in damaged biospheres because it’s very presence is extremely conducive to plant growth. It has a massive amount of edible plants growing on it and can stimulate plant growth from all of the detritus dropping from it. It hasn't been tested extensively, but it’s suspected that Kaiju can even be nourished and healed from what’s growing on it. For more offensive purposes, it’s been sighted letting out plumes of toxic spores and pollen, which have reported to cause everything from vivid hallucinations to total organ failure.
Primordial Wilds: Nobody is sure how this ability came about but it’s suspected to be an ability of it’s second donor. Somehow, Gnarl is home to more than just plant life. The species tend to correlate to European forests and are visible almost immediately after transformation. Giant flocks of birds circle it’s upper portions, predators run at its feet, insects swarm and burrow around and through it, and other forms of life cling and scurry among its undergrowth. It’s theorized these animals are gestated rapidly from within Gnarl and then released. Why it does this isn’t totally known, but the fauna function as a crude form of sight and defense against smaller and faster attackers. When inspected up close, the wildlife has more in common with plants that actual animals, often being covered in bark, moss, fungi, and other detritus similar to what coats Gnarl. Of note is that the ‘animals’ are almost entirely silent except for a sort of call very rarely heard. It has been described as almost sounding like wordless singing.
Overgrowth: Gnarl can cause rapid and uncontrolled plant growth. Giant trees bursting from the ground, meter-thick lattices of ivy and vines, roots and brambles snaking from the earth, etc. Other than impeding the movements of enemy kaijus and providing defense for civilians, it’s also been used to try and repair some of the more damaged border-areas. It’s only been tried in Europe due to the massive ecological shift it could cause in an area outside of the generated biosphere, but trials have been optimistic. Some are even saying it doesn’t matter what shift it causes because the environment in the Red Zones is doomed anyway. Gnarl can't fix radiation, though, so that’s a long way away no matter what. This tends not to be used in urban areas, either, because the sudden and violent influx of greenery can cause severe structural damage and loss of life.
Personality: Ilya doesn’t say very much. He’s not a rude person, but he finds very little value in small-talk. He’s honestly not that great with people in general, especially strangers. Among what he sees as his own kind, however, he’s extremely generous and diligent. He possesses the sort of practicality that one would find in a survivalist or woodsman, and has an very dark sense of humor.
Backstory: When the world got turned upside-down, people fled their homes. Whatever happened in Russia and the surrounding area still isn’t known, not fully, but it’s people are not yet dead. They left their cities and towns behind, hoping to find sanctuary in the Scandinavian and Baltic forests. Most of these settlements failed quickly, either because they didn’t hide well enough or because they simply weren’t prepared to survive in the harsh and primitive conditions. Some, however, did survive, either because they had people capable of surviving and teaching others to do so, or because they assimilated with whatever native populations remained. These societies were never very big, the largest found being only about three thousand strong, but they managed to stay under the radar of both the Kaiju and the new unified government. The ‘Forest People’, as these groups have come to be known, have managed to carve out a primitive but sustainable existence in the regrown forests, having lived in isolation for at least a generation. The new government tends to leave them alone, as they live in areas extremely close to or inside the borders of the Russian Dead Zone, particularly in Finland. If they ever interact with the outside world, it for trading purposes, as they Forest People have a wealth of information related to Kaiju in the Dead Zone and what’s happening in the border regions. Some brave souls have even begun exploring the old cities in the Baltic States, hoping to find loot and answers.
There is friction, however. These groups are beginning to branch off from conventional society. New dialects, cultures, languages, even religions are beginning to appear among these groups, and most are totally unwilling to join up with the new government. They can’t beat them militarily, but they have the sympathy of the public and a skill at guerilla warfare that has stymied any attempt at annexation. In fact, the Forest People of Estonia have begun forming a small country on the West Estonian Archipelago, centered on the Island of Saaremaa and incorporating the surrounding islands. It doesn’t have a name yet, but the unified government was taken to calling it the Moonsund Confederacy. Similar events are occuring in Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Arland and Gotland, and Belarus (Although something happened to Chernobyl that caused the populace to area to go dark overnight) although not to that extent.
Ilya is one of the Forest People, having been born to a Russian father and Finnish mother in what was Ilomantsi in Eastern Finland, bordering the Russian province of Karelia. His existence was simple and hard, and very little of note occurred until he was about twenty years of age. He was exploring the southern reaches of his home when he came across the first evidence of the outside world. The Walker built by the Estonians, Kalevipoeg, was travelling to meet a Kaiju in battle. He tracked it for weeks until the battle commenced. Evidently, the Walker was attempting to reclaim the city of Tallinn, along with the Polish Walker, Szczerbiec, and the Romanian Walker, Tepes. They succeeded. Barely.
Ilya was wounded trying to get away from the carnage, and has no memory of what occurred during or after the fight. What he does know is that one of his Kaiju was the target of the Estonian Walker. It had been dormant for a decade, and in that time had managed to convert the entire urban area into a massive forest. The fauna and flora had been extremely dangerous, and nobody thought that the Kaiju was actually dormant. Unfortunately for the Walker pilots, they almost woke it up. It took the near destruction of three walkers and the ruination of what was left of the city to contain was likely would have been one of the most destructive Kaiju the world would have ever seen. The details of the battle are classified, but it’s suspected that the entire Walker arsenal of the former EU would have been mobilized if it wasn’t for the sacrifices of those three heroic mechs and their operators.
Ilya was found unconscious by a recon team and taken to a field hospital. He was spliced involuntarily after they realized he had the gene, as he had no citizenship or rights on any kind. The second Kaiju, while not as dangerous, reportedly was found in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, reportedly having been on a course directly to New York. It looked like a pile of ambulatory plant matter, without wooden components, and sang a tune that caused every inorganic material within audible range to crumble to nothingness. Every animal that heard it reacted with elation before peacefully passing away. It was taken out by a series of thermobaric drone strikes as no living organism, not even Walker pilots, could get anywhere near it. Reportedly, the missiles used had to have inches of excess material added to them to survive the in-flight degradation, and the drone pilots, upon hearing the death knell of the Kaiju, bashed their heads against their monitors until they died.
?
