Juchi Ika

The Second Incarnate, Juchi Ika (a.k.a. The Second-born Hiku)

Juchi was the greatest wielder of Bardic magic in history and one of the founding figures of the Singing Church of Orisha. They are remembered among mortals as a semi-divine figure and a reincarnation of The Lunar Goddess Hiku. In heaven, they seem to either have become a vessel for their Goddess or have learned to play the part so convincingly that there is no meaningful difference.
One might hear 'bard' and imagine that Juchi lived a life of free-spirited pomp and revelry, and one would be astonishingly wrong. Juchi was an extremely serious person known to be humorless at times. They lived their life for others at all times, and never had the chance to really live as their own person. They had an extreme view on fate and free will (notably, that free will does not exist), and lived and died by their ironclad faith in destiny. 
Their zealous pursuit of their peculiar beliefs made it particularly easy for later generations to depict them as an ethereal, magical being beyond mortal understanding. Even religions other than the Singing Church generally accept that Juchi was more than a person - The Final Choir of Vetevism sees them as a spirit possessing a mortal body, for example. Only The Way of Brambleshanks recognizes Juchi for what they were: a person, just one that denied their own personhood.

Mental characteristics

Personal history

Early Life

Juchi was born to a family of vineyard-workers in the village of Kesura, near the edge of the then-thriving Confederation of Metahn. Metahn was already beginning a massive war with the surrounding states when Juchi was born, and this war continued through much of Juchi's early life.

When Juchi was five, Kesura became a battleground, caught between the forces of Metahn and Shaniku. Juchi's family perished in the flames of the burning village, and Juchi was one of a handful saved by a Paladin of Hiku and taken to the nearby monastery for housing. Juchi worked as a servant for the local bard-monks for a few years, but the monks eventually took a liking to the young dryad and began allowing Juchi at act as an artistic assistant. By the age of ten, Juchi had begun to pick up elements of bardic magic, and they were welcomed into the monk's ranks as a heaven-sent prodigy.
As the monks taught Juchi the art of magic, they also indoctrinated him. He learned that he was an agent of the Lunar Goddess Hiku, spared by her paladin so he could do her bidding - that his life was a debt to her before it belonged to him. He was taught that his village was destroyed through the endless wickedness of the enemies of the land: The Final Choir of Vetevism and their wicked allies, Ishkibal, Theia the Liberator, Lily of Red, and Orchid of Blue. The current conflict, known historically as The Prism Wars was a matter of Lunar meddling at its core: Hiku and her ally, Jade, had sought to divide Nafena between them under two great Prism empires, and the opposing Lunar Gods intervened to try and keep Nafena a "balanced" continent controlled by the Lunar Gods in equal parts. 

Juchi was led to believe that his worship of Hiku fed her power - and that worship of these dark gods fed them. It inspired a kind of existential terror that mixed well with his pre-existing grief. When he had finally learned all he could from the monks at age 16, he eagerly embarked on a journey to fight for his country and Goddess. 
For fifteen years, Juchi led from the front as a battle-bard. He healed the wounded, revived slain officers, and assassinated enemy specialists, which honed his craft and strengthened his magics. In the end, he saved Metahn from being crushed, but he arrived too late on the scene: the war was already lost by the time he was of age to fight. In 745 ME, Metahn signed a white peace with the opposing coalition - a close matter in which Juchi played a deciding factor. He was furious at this 'unjust peace' nonetheless. 

Building a Life

For two years, he meditated and contacted his Goddess, desperate for answers. They talked for many hours, and she set him on a new course: to build her her own "Choir", her own religion to oppose Vetevism. Already a bard of significant power, he was well respected and quite articulate. This would be his way to protect the world and pay his debt.
For ten years, he wrote and preached and organized. His magical training went on pause and his emotional wounds began to heal. He fell in love, started a family with a brilliant architect that helped design a great cathedral for his new faith. The world started making sense; he visited his old monastic family regularly, he had friends, and a life, which was new. Agency, even. But eventually, while experimenting with magic, he encountered a most unusual thing: he noticed a silent scrying, a powerful presence magically watching him. He began trying to trace this spell, to little avail, and its difficulty to grasp intrigued him - he meditated, thought, made art of it. He began to feel it watching him again and again, barely perceptible and perhaps not even real. Hiku could not seem to see it, all wards and logic could not, but through magical detection spells he could faintly detect it. No one believed him, and yet these tiny fragments of proof got under his skin. They were challenges to the careful order he was constructing and to the security he clung to. 
Only Hiku seemed to be able to grasp the horrific gravity of it all. She spoke to Juchi of the nature of the universe, and told him horrible secrets. She said that the world was an illusion only made real by outside perception, that reality was malleable and subject to arbitrary change that most people could not even remember. Juchi's stable reality began to feel fake, a source of uncanny terror. 

Juchi the Unhinged

Eventually, Juchi felt the call to return to their life before they were a builder. There was comfort in that mixture of surrender and rage, and one day they just left their whole life to pursue it. Unfortunately, without an active war going on, Juchi was closer to a bandit or terrorist than a warrior. He visited death upon the land of Shaniku, the land that had once destroyed his village and which he had learned to hate above all others. And when he returned from his spree of destruction, home was now actively hostile to him. And so he followed the call of Hiku Northward, to spread her divine message to new lands. 
For another decade and a half he wandered and fought and proselytized. He ventured across Nafena with a group of close disciples, building churches as he went. Eventually, he returned to Metahn a hero. His family was still distant, but he was able to right a number of wrongs: he resurrected his old family, healed those who had been injured, and avenged a number of wrongs done upon them. But he was no longer just a parent to his children or a child of his parents - he was Hiku reborn now. His impulses were his, but his emotions were hers.
He was growing older, though. Many expected him to ascend bodily or defy death in some way, and he began to grow worried that he might not be able to fulfill their wishes. Hiku gave him one final mission to make his legacy unforgettable: every story needs a memorable ending, and Juchi needed to go out with a bang. He issued challenges to the greatest rival warriors and magicians, hoping that some great rival would emerge who could kill him in an epic public bout, but all proved disappointing. 
With no satisfactory rivals to fall in epic combat with, Juchi decided to use the most powerful arcane spell ever cast - Wish - to ascend to join Hiku whatever the cost may be. His soul began trying to ascend, but his body held it down in horrific magical chaos. With pilgrims flocking around him, he walked wordlessly to the distant volcano of Kemelna. He flung his body into the volcano, and his spirit ascended in a great burst of magical power. The volcano simmers with pale blue light and strange magics to this day. 

Juchi the Mask of God

What Juchi's 'Wish' spell actually did is not fully understood to anyone but him. After ascending, he has been at Hiku's side in Paradise, at times as a performer in her cosmic concert, at times a stand in for her, at times an apparent confidante. He has played many roles over the centuries: a diplomatic representative of Hiku, a face for her to wear, and a spy in the court of Lily of Red who feigned "freedom" for centuries while furthering his Goddess' agenda. At times, Hiku seems to be able to appear as Juchi in body and visa versa, though it is unknown if this is simple bardic magic or something more profound.

Gender Identity

Third-gender he/him

Religions

• The Singing Church of Orisha

Alignment

Lawful Neutral

Current Location

Paradise

Species

Dryad

Church/Cult

The Singing Church of Orisha

Life

720 ME 805 ME 85 years old

Birthplace

Metahn, Nafena

Eyes

Black

Hair

Blue-green flowers

Skin Tone/Pigmentation

Light green with brown speckles

Height

5'10"

Aligned Organization

The Singing Church of Orisha