RUMBROGON

Keywords:

Towering warrior, fearless berserker, Infested alien, giant swordsman, regenerating terror. The Dreadknight, the Witch's Sentinel, "Mo-mo."

Personality:

Rumbrogon is difficult to comprehend because he is not a human. He comes from a different planet, nature, species, and civilization. Many concepts, such as ethics, morals, and behavioral patterns we use to define a person, simply do not apply.

It is largely unknown what kind of culture his people had. Infestation annihilated a lot of history and information. Humans do not know about their species' planet of origin or their civilization. Nothing. With such limited data to analyze, it isn't easy to truly understand, build a relationship with, or empathize with him.

Nevertheless, Neo-humans, especially the Osiris crew, have a rudimentary understanding of him. He seems to experience emotions like anger, humor, and, on rare occasions, fear. He also responds to stress and has morals like honor, social skills like teamwork, interpersonal skills like hierarchy awareness and empathy, or personal skills like discipline and motivation. It is also clear he lacks some emotions like envy, craving, and surprise. Some emotions like sadness, happiness, and entrancement seem severely limited, or he is good at hiding them. We do not know if he has any sexual desires or romantic feelings.

Behavioral patterns, social etiquette, and cultural norms he adheres to diverge from commonly accepted human and Neo-human norms. He can occasionally be perceived as extremely rude, but he seldom intends it. He simply does not have such values. It seems Odile has educated him on some of the human values and proper behavior, learning many details about his culture in the process.

Similarly, his communication methods are quite divergent. We suspect that the aurions communicate via sophisticated vocal vibrations combined with some sign language. Rumbrogon lost his communication skills partially due to the damage caused by the Infestation. He occasionally mumbles something that sounds like "Mo-Mo!". Hence the nickname bestowed on him by Phoenix, the "Mo-Mo'nster," or "Mo-Mo" for short.

There is much to learn about Rumbrogon and his kind, their home planet, culture, and history. The secrets are scattered throughout the universe, awaiting discovery.

Loves:

Rumbrogon never stops training, and his sword never leaves his side. He adores Odile and loses himself when she sings, or rather hums, and dances. He enjoys being Odile's towering escort, especially when she is in a state of trance. He is genuinely interested in animals, artificial or otherwise, and arachnids.

He likes combat; the bigger, the better. He is also profoundly interested in skulls. Skulls of any kind, animal, human, alien, it doesn't matter. If it's a skull, it goes into his collection.

He is also fascinated with natural wooden toys; he loves how they smell. Where did he come across them? What happened?

Lastly, he loves the sound of engines. The louder, the better. If he is not by Odile's side, you can probably find him in the hangar area, switching Thundershark's engines on and off to bask in the roaring sound. Bad news for Xander, who loves his peace.

Hates:

He loathes the marajuaronesis, sai-jeva, and niataju species of the Mondrad family from his home system. On their homeworld, these were the arch-enemies of the aurion, his species. All of his people were swallowed up by the Infestation. Nevertheless, Rumbrogon still holds his grudge.

He also dislikes the Infestation despite being Infested, albeit not all of the Infested creatures. We do not know how he can tell them apart.

He despises weakness and anyone who mostly depends on others to survive. In their war-like culture, it seems, being a weakling is a cardinal sin. All in all, if you want to seriously enrage Rumbrogon, just try threatening Odile.

Rumbrogon's past is largely inaccessible or, rather, tremendously painful to access. Unlike Neo-humans, whose memories must be erased for a sustainable post-transcendence life consistency, Rumbrogon's memories are mainly intact. Like Odile, he remembers his pre-infestation life. Sadly, trying to remember the past is excruciatingly painful for him. He experiences intense physical and presumably emotional pain. We are unsure if it is a common side effect for all Infested beings since there are only several conscious ones. Odile was never observed to suffer post-memory access pain surges, while Rumbrogon frequently deals with them.

The surges can be severe. It is not rare to hear his reverberating, heartbreaking screams inside the long cold halls of Osiris. Sometimes he hurts himself by bashing his head into walls or dunking his head into ice-cold water buckets to slow down brain function for relief. Due to his superb regeneration skills, these actions never leave permanent damage, maybe with the exception of his psychology.

Infested organisms do not require organic food. Under suitable circumstances, they obtain the required energy from electromagnetic or nuclear power sources. Therefore Rumbrogon does not eat and can harness energy from starlight, electric fields, radioactive components and particles, and the like. On the other hand, the conditions and consumption speed must be within absorbable ranges. A thunderbolt can promptly kill him, for instance. The high-density energy concentration would create significant heat and burn the carbon atoms in his body, killing him in the process.

The Infestation needs some liquid components too. Studies are severely limited for us to claim to have an exact list, but it has been established that it works as long as the component is not too acidic, like water or liquid sulfur. Various Neo-human sources reference that when an Infested organism, whether a colony body or a creature, loses all fluid in its body, it becomes dormant. When the organism is introduced to a water source, it comes back to life. Neither Rumbrogon nor Odile were left without a source of liquid for a prolonged time so far. Though, in theory, if even they "dry up" and go dormant, they should be able to come back to life when somebody splashes them with a large bucket of water!

Rumbrogon never sleeps. Presumably, this is caused by the Infestation and isn't a feature of his species as Odile, likewise, does not require sleep. Instead, both "hibernate" in a specific state. When triggered, they breathe incredibly fast, regenerate even faster if they have injuries, and stop responding to the environment unless they detect danger. Their eyes mostly remain open, and they likely partially sense their surroundings but ignore most of the stimuli and information. They can hibernate anytime, even while standing, and they usually enter this state in short bursts throughout the day.

We know almost nothing about Rumbrogon's pre-Infestation life. His planet and his people are long gone, he is avoiding his memories due to unbearable pain, and we can not fully comprehend his vocal and sign language. Seemingly the only person who can understand him is Odile. Since Odile is also a silent character, it seems Rumbrogon's past is locked away from us. Despite all this, we know he must have died during the First Extinction Catastrophe, as it is called in Neo-human records. It is the earliest traced outbreak of Infestation that annihilated the Sorien system, including his home planet Sja. Rumbrogon has to be at least 800 years old!

To travel from one planet to another in the Sorien system, he must have used Interplanetary Infested Tunnels (IPITs). Casually referred to as hyperlinks, they are immense Infested veins linking planets, moons, and asteroids. The Sorien system is quite distant from the outer ring colony where Odile lived. Hence, it is a great mystery how they found each other despite the significant distance and without a fast space vessel.

Somehow they stumbled upon each other, building a solid mutual bond, and Odile's charisma enchanted Rumbrogon. Now he is her trustworthy friend, fearless sentinel, and maybe even more.