Zaliyah

A former Toa, whose transformation into a Hordika led her into the ranks of the League of Six Kingdoms.

Description
Once resplendent and beautiful, Zaliyah has been devolved into a more bestial form, her once gleaming armour pitted and scratched, her streamlined appearance now marred by protruding spikes and claws.

After her mutation, Zaliyah lost access to her mask power, and her natural elemental abilities were greatly diminished. She is enraged at the sight – sometimes the mere mention – of Toa, and despises Matoran with a burning passion, after all of her wasted years of trying to protect them. Her mutation has made her right arm larger and heavier than her left, a trait that throws off her balance and coordination, making feats of poise and agility difficult for her.

Zaliyah still retains some psionic abilities, but much of her power is focussed inwards, forming a protective psionic shell around her consciousness. Whereas most Hordika slowly regress into a bestial state as the venom breaks down their minds, Zaliyah has kept the inner beast completely separated from her true self, forming two distinct personalities. Zaliyah can hand over control of her body to her Hordika side – a ferocious, ravenous monster which she refers to as The Id – and still retain full awareness, as a passenger in her own body, able to seize back control whenever she desires. The shift between these two personalities can take a few seconds, leaving her body vulnerable in the interim.

When Zaliyah is in control, she still possesses a passive telepathy that allows her to detect nearby minds and their approximate locations, though she can no longer read thoughts, project her thoughts into the minds of others, or exert mind control. She can also still make some use of telekinesis, though this is limited to small objects within a moderate distance.

The Id wields different abilities when it takes control. Because it spends so much time trapped in the confines of Zaliyah’s mind, when The Id is unleashed it operates in a near-constant state of savage berserker rage, with increased endurance, strength, and pain tolerance. In place of Zaliyah’s passive telepathy, The Id radiates an aura of primal fear which can be felt by those in its vicinity. This aura evokes the instinctual, animal fear in every being – the instinct that drives a rahi to flee in the presence of a predator, the panic of a wounded swimmer in Takea-infested waters, the paranoid trepidation that makes weary travellers cling close to their campfires.

However, The Id’s most horrifying power is its ability to consume the minds of the dying, absorbing every last scrap of memory and emotion from beings in the moment of their expiration. This ability allows Zaliyah to glean information from these memories as The Id digests them, and prevents the victim from being revived on the Red Star or through other means.

Regardless of which personality is in command, the talons of Zaliyah’s mutated right hand secretes a sort of psionic venom, which upon entering the bloodstream, creates an illusion that will fool the senses. This illusion will make the user believe their injuries are infected or poisoned. To the victim, open wounds will look off-colour, and feel like they itch or burn. Because the illusion is effectively inside the victim, its effects will not be visible to other beings, and cannot be dispelled or ignored as easily as most illusions. The venom can be countered using remove poison Kanoka, healing abilities, etc. and its effects only last a half-hour regardless.

As with most Hordika, Zaliyah has developed a natural Rhotuka launcher, mounted on her right shoulder. Once airborne, she can mentally command her Rhotuka to detonate, causing them to explode into small shards of sharpened energy, which are imbued with the same venom as her claws. These explosions only have a small radius, and the shards swiftly dissipate after travelling a short distance or striking a target.

She has also taken to wielding a Herding Blade, which is capable of firing beams of energy, and influencing Visorak. Rather than using it to command the creatures, however, Zaliyah uses it to chase them away in the rare occasions her troops have encountered them.

Background
Once, long ago, Zaliyah was part of a Toa team, protecting the Matoran population of a small settlement on the eastern coastline of the Southern Continent. It was a sheltered, content place, with incidents few and far between… until the day a swarm of Keelerak came ashore.

The Toa were able to repel the creatures, but not before Zaliyah was bitten and infected with Visorak venom, transforming her into a Hordika. Though the Matoran were bitterly afraid of her, her fellow Toa tolerated her new form, right up until the day they didn’t.

It was an accident. A battle against bandits, a stray rhotuka, a Matoran running from cover at the wrong moment. But Zaliyah was still blamed for it, even by those she had once called her brothers and sisters. It was proof, they said, that her self control was gone, that she was losing the battle to the beast within. They drove her from the village, chased her out into the sea and left her to the mercy of the beasts below.

But Zaliyah survived.

She was eventually recruited into the League of Six Kingdoms, a multi-species conglomerate of outcasts and outsiders who didn’t judge her for her appearance. To prove her worth, she led an attack force back to the village she’d spent so much of her existence protecting, exploiting every weakness and pressure point to defeat her former teammates and raze the village without incurring a single League loss.

After many years of loyal service to the League, she now leads a legion under the command of Barraki Pridak, whose mindset of being true to himself inspired Zaliyah to embrace her mutation rather than be ashamed of it.

In-game History
Zaliyah was among the crew of The Ripple, though she didn't play any major role in the expedition beyond helping fight off the Visorak and undead. Following her return to the Barraki island, she was the first to follow Pridak through the portal to Metru Nui.

At the behest of her Barraki, she joined up with Ehlek's forces, and aided them in the conquest of Le-Metru.