The Cosmic Presence Backstory:
The first Vigilante was a girl with a wish, she screamed to the cosmos: all she wanted was connection, to be understood. Suddenly, she could feel something change inside of her, and she could feel something in front of her, but all she could see was the cosmos. Whether it was a cruel joke from the universe, or a gift from the stars, a cosmic presence made itself known to the girl.
This Cosmic Presence wanted to be connected to something, it wanted to understand itself, and she could help it achieve that.
This girl would become not only the first Vigilante, but would also create the first Faction, as she found more like-minded people who could build up The Cosmic Presence’s image and understanding.
Lore explanation:
Vigilantes first started when a girl became connected to the first Cosmic Presence, an otherworldly creature that had no physical form and no identity, it simply just existed. The Cosmic Presence found humans, and it wanted what they had, connection and understanding. It found a human who also wanted that, and realized they could help each other. By connecting itself to the girl, the Cosmic Presence was able to build off of her identity to create it’s own, and the more people it connected itself to, the more fleshed out that identity would become. Because of this, the girl began finding other people who felt the same way, and slowly they began curating an identity for their Cosmic Presence, one Vigilante at a time. That is where the first Faction came from, and why many factions are very theme oriented, because what’s really happening is that they’re building up the identity of the source of their power by finding people with similar characteristics and moral standings. However what’s important to know is that the first Cosmic Presence never connected itself to people who didn’t want it, nothing was ever forced. However the first Cosmic Presence isn’t the only one to exist in this world, which then is where the Rogue Cosmic Presence comes in.
“Rogue” Cosmic Presence (not to be confused with the Faction) comes from the concept of any Cosmic Presence that showed up after the first, and just began to spread and evolve through forced connections (going “rogue” so to speak). They’re where most Vigilantes come from, however the Faction “The Rogues” was formed by a Vigilante who is doing the same thing as the first Faction, trying to form a specific image and power of their faction’s Cosmic Presence, except they focus on power and strength-in-numbers over understanding and pure connections.
(Basically the first Cosmic Presence had pure intentions and coexists with humans who agrees to help it form an identity, meanwhile the Rogue Cosmic Presence (plural) just finds someone and is like “you’re intriguing, I like you, you’re going to help me form an identity whether you like it or not” and then you end up with a Vigilante who really doesn’t like that they’re a Vigilante)
Now you may be wondering: how many Cosmic Presence exists? Well, technically only 17 currently (I say as if that’s a small number…). This is because there’s a difference between a Cosmic Presence with a built up identity, and a cosmic presence that exists through the image it gives the Vigilante it connected itself with. Basically there’s a big Cosmic Presence, one that has form created by connecting to enough Vigilante’s and absorbing their Potential (I’ll explain more about Potential later), and then there’s the many tiny Cosmic Presence, which I’ve been calling “Stardust” to differentiate from the Cosmic Presence, which is what each Vigilante has living inside of them and can tap into to transform. Stardust is what absorbs concepts from humans minds and builds the Vigilante forms off of, essentially they’re creating their own identity through a human, but all they can really do is grant power and play dress up (because they have no physical form of their own). The Cosmic Presence, on the other hand, is a giant being with distinct identities drawn from the concepts each Stardust curated inside of their Vigilante, therefore connecting enough Stardust will eventually form a Cosmic Presence, because of this each Faction has a Cosmic Presence, but anyone else simply just has a Stardust.
Most Vigilantes who makes a Faction is completely unaware that they are simultaneously creating a Cosmic Presence of their own by connecting (and often curating) Stardust. The only Vigilantes who are aware of this is those who came first, and those who either figured it out on their own, or was told by someone who is aware of it.
Easiest way to describe why a Cosmic Presence needs human connection and concepts to gain a physical form is that Cosmic Presence doesn’t have any concepts to draw from to create identities and ideas, they have intrigue and curiosity and nothing to use it for when they’re just existing in their starry void of a world. They’re all kind of just alien artists who finally has a canvas and inspiration haha (except others that are power driven)
