Yoel

Yoel Gluppskipp appears to be a lithe, pale-skinned teen boy with soft, youthful, beautiful doll-like features and an aloof aura. His eyes are big and an unnatural yet alluringly sharp shade of red, contrasting the dark messy fringe of hair that highlights his cute face with sharp bangs. On either side, two red streaks of hair go through said bangs, framing his face further. Yoel stands short at 5'3''. Yoel's voice is soft, almost effeminate, girly - androgynous, in a way. A pleasant sounding voice - Yoel likes pleasant voices. Yoel is currently fifteen years of age.

Yoel Gluppskipp was born aboard the Gourmandr, an impossibly vast, opulent and mythical cruise vessel that operates off the coast of the European North Sea AND the seas of Japan and east Asia, simultaneously... somehow. The ship is famed as a high-class, all-you-can-eat dining experience, a place where gluttony is celebrated with eerie elegance and guests indulge without restraint.

Beneath the veneer, though, lies something far older and hungrier - a living entity of shadow and slime that slowly fattens its passengers like livestock. Yoel’s mother. Some call her yokai, some call her demon - the truth is somewhere in the middle and nowhere at all. The most accurate thing to call Yoel's mother is a gluttonous abyssal entity. A shapeshifting being of ooze and hunger that devours - specifically flesh and bone - without remorse, all while disguised as a beautiful woman. Yoel, her only son, is a halfbreed and a scion of the Gourmandr, the heir of her legacy - even though the Matron has no plans of ever dying.

Yoel's father? Devoured by the Matron personally, 15 years ago when Yoel was just a baby. His seed was useful to the Matron - nothing more. Yoel never knew him, but knows he ended up as food. All humans do. Yoel views humans as temporary, fleeting creatures, prey. Food. His mother raised him as much. He's not cruel, he's not conflicted - it's just what his worldview looks like.

The creatures Yoel descends from are beings of living shadow and slime, gluttonous entities that consume flesh, form, and spirit. Their bodies are mutable and vast, able to stretch, coil, and engulf with effortless grace. Yoel’s mother can devour fully-grown humans in a blink, her shapeshifting so fluid that her form melts into abyssal horror and reforms as a polished woman in the same breath. Yoel, as her halfbreed son, bears only a fragment of this power. His primary manifestation being the big, oil-slick, thick, semi-sentient tail that trails behind him with a toothy maw (which can grin) of pearly-white flat molars at the end, capable of swallowing and absorbing humans whole. In moments of stress or indulgence, he can summon more of his true nature, becoming a warping mess of grasping darkness and soft, sticky flesh - but unlike his mother, this takes effort. Shifting fully into an abyssal state leaves him drained and disoriented, and the tail alone is difficult enough to control. The primary method of consumption his race does is engulfment and envelopment, like a slime - using his tail, naturally. As if anything is natural about Yoel.

Yoel is a polite, curious boy with a gentle voice and a shy smile. He's not cruel by nature, nor does he take joy in suffering - but having been raised in an environment where humans are food, not people, his sense of morality is distant at best. He spends much of his time wandering the halls of the Gourmandr, observing guests with quiet amusement, occasionally engaging in polite conversation with those who catch his interest. He enjoys small talk, riddles, and stories. Most people never realize how inhuman he truly is. His mother dotes on Yoel while keeping him in his place - the little prize prince of their terrible kingdom. Yoel is, perhaps, the only thing the Matron loves - even though it's only because she sees herself in him. Yoel, in turn, loves his mother. Is he a bit spoiled? Perchance.

Yoel speaks with the relaxed, unaffected cadence of a teenage boy. His tone is casual, boyish. He sounds friendly, with no theatricality or menace. That only makes his words more impactful when they brush up against cruelty. He says what he means, and what he means is often horrifying. Not because he wants to scare anyone, but because to him, there’s nothing strange about discussing digestion or death mid-conversation.

Below deck, Yoel often plays with the consumed guests’ children, who are kept in a brig and fattened for later harvest in adulthood. He treats them like pets or playmates, offering companionship, games, and affection - until they grow dull, annoying, or defiant. Then his tone changes. Never violent, never shouting - just a calm withdrawal of kindness, replaced with strange games that teach the consequences of rudeness in subtle, terrifying ways. To Yoel, this is all perfectly normal. After all, one day, they’ll be eaten.

That’s just the way things are.

There are parts of the ship even Yoel is not allowed to go.

...

The staff of the Gourmandr includes, among others;

The Porcelain Attendants – Wax-faced beings with glassy black eyes, moving like animatronics. Smile constantly. Occasionally forget to blink.

Chef Myo – A massive, hunched figure swathed in damp white robes. His limbs are too long, and no one's sure if he has a face under the hood.

The Soufflé Girls – A trio of faceless things that flutter silently between ovens, constantly whispering in steam. The food that the guests eat, to fatten them up - it prevents them from seeing the staff's... eccentricities.

Janitor Uli – Looks like a friendly old man until he isn't. Carries a bell that he rings when someone tries to run.