Far down the shore from the boardwalk, wind-whipped waves shatter on outcropping of razor-edged, porous grey rock. They seethe with wreckage swept back to shore by the ocean, as if she seeks to vomit back the refuse of the land. Old fishing nets, splintered planks, the tattered remnants of cargo - these and more are tossed on the rocks and dragged over cutting stone.

Inside one such wave, a flash of pink shines in the low light of the predawn horizon, tumbled by the waters. It could be any bright bit of flotsam, except that as the crest of the wave falls, two fleshy, barbed tentacles shoot out of the water, lengthening impossibly to hook onto a ledge just before the wave collapses. When it draws back out to sea, it leaves behind a swollen amniotic sac that clings to the pitted rock beneath it with a dozen more anchoring tentacles as something squirms violently within it.

As soon as this canker is expelled, the violence of the sea begins to subside, though the wind still races across the shore.

The sac convulses, the shape inside it twisting, and then it ruptures in a fountain of gore that punches up towards the sky and falls in a green hued rain of Vileblood, drenching anything unfortunate enough to be nearby, especially the sodden human body that sits bolt upright in the deflating blister. It stares out wildly towards the first gentle blush of a new morning on an old world.

The Saint of Joy fills her trembling new lungs, and screams.

Somewhere on the shore, you are beset by a monster.

Perhaps it is a shelled titan whose carapace spews stinging tendrils as it trundles up the sand, or a winding eyeless eel with six tiered jaws that lunges for you, or an undulating translucent sea slug that vomits black acid at anything within reach of its slow moving autonomous gut. It could be anything. It might well be anything, the next time you look at it.

It doesn't matter what it is, or how it towers. As it menaces its chosen prey, a torrent of pinkish, frothing liquid blasts into it from the side, reeking of bile and rotten flowers. Whatever flesh it touches scalds, and the slight, small figure behind the point this noxious stream flows from laughs in a glass cutting mad peel, her green-stained hair tacked wetly around her too-wide eyes.

Alas: your salvation is at hand.

[Contact me at terriblepurpose if you'd like to discuss another starter. Permissions for this character can be found here.]