Name: Baladas Venym Age: 201 Gender: Male Race: Dunmer Appearance: Tall, slim, with darker skin than the typical Dunmer, and the angular features and crimson eyes of his race. His nose is arched crooked from repeated breaks, and his face marked by numerous scars, the most prominent of which travels from his hairline to his chin on the left side of his face, notching his lip. He has a trim, short goatee, and shoulder length black hair streaked with grey. He usually wears a weather beaten, dark red robe and travel cloak the Telvanni style. Personality: Unusual for Dunmer and sorcerers alike, Venym is cordial and personable, an person of such endless verbosity that he frequently comes across as slightly unhinged. He has a sharp sense of humor, an encyclopedic knowledge of lore and literature, and is possessed of an almost childlike fascination with the world. He has always been a restless scholar with a taste for danger, curious and cerebral, but unwilling to spend his life in a dank library or cloistered in a fungus-tower. While he regularly courts death and is no coward, Venym is driven primarily by the desire to attain immortality. He is egocentric, arrogant, and supremely-often insanely-self confident, but at the same time has a genuine interest in other people and loves a good story and conversation. These contrasting traits make for a somewhat inconsistent character, by turns ruthless, irritable and self centered or generous and hilarious. History: [hider=My Story?] "My story?" asked the Dunmer, sipping his brandy and offering the barmaid a crooked, yellowed smile, "I'm a wizard." "Aye," she said with a hearty nord laugh, "And I'm Titus Mede, dark elf." "You don't believe me?" "No, no I do. The Skulking Cub gets wizards all the time. Hagravens and Snow elfs too. It's the favored drinking establishment of the witching community." "I don't doubt it, given the quality of the conversation and companionship one finds here." said the Dunmer, with a sweep of his arm towards the dim, smoky tavern, crowded with half-drunk guardsman and whores. A one-eyed old man glared at him and spat into the rushes through a gap in his teeth. The elf shrugged and turned back to the barmaid. "But I wasn't lying. I am wizard, Baladas Venym of House Telvanni, in Morrowind. Pleased to meet you. We Telvanni are in a period of- ah- transition of late. Perhaps that's why you've not heard of us." "Telvanno? I recognize the name- met a dandy once, a horrible little man with a painted-on mustache, but he wore excellent scent. Said dunmer witchdoctors made it out of giant beetles." "See? The fame of my esteemed House precedes me." "Well what're you doing here in Riften, Master Telvanno? Hunting beetles?" The Dunmer laughed, gravelly and baritone. "Not quite beetles, no. A bit of contract work to fill the coffers again, then I'm off to Solstheim to meet with a very old and very esteemed acquaintance of mine." "You travel quite a bit for a wizard, aren't you lot more the tower and library type? That or hanging off the arm of one Jarl or another." "Yes well," said the Dunmer, "Neither politics nor traditional scholarship ever much suited me, I'm afraid, and where I'm from the two are oddly intertwined. I prefer life on the road. More interesting." The barmaid shrugged, "Wouldn't know." "Oh no?" asked the wizard, "That scar on your shoulder, the way you carry yourself? You're telling me you've not been on an adventure or two?" "Not one you'd want to hear tell of, wizard." said the barmaid, suddenly cold. Venym smirked, leaning back on his stool and taking another swig of brandy as the barmaid turned away to fill a tankard for another customer. "Shame about the children, last night." he said, loudly but to no one in particular. The barmaid's head jerked back and she shot him a glance one part confusion, one part anger. "Along the road south," said the wizard, "Surely you heard? Young neophytes of Mara, headed for the Temple here? Torn up, the lot. Like wolves, the guards that found them said, only worse. I'm not a believer myself, but....after a thing like that, one almost hopes the gods punish the wicked." "Didn't hear of it." said the barmaid, turning to meet the wizard's gaze, "Sounds terrible. Mara avenges her own, though." The dunmer drained his glass. Everything that happened next did so very quickly. The barmaid snarled, and in doing so somehow [i]changed[/i]. She launched herself at the dunmer, and the boozy denizens of the Skulking Cub fell silent as their collective attention turned to this latest development. The elf slipped smoothly out of the barmaid's trajectory, robes swirling around him as he rolled into a half crouch. The barmaid crashed into his empty stool, thrashing as she tried to right herself. Now the changes were more pronounced. Black fur. White eyes. Fangs and claws. Someone in the bar called for Talos to save them. A stampede began for the door. "They'll blame you, wizard," she growled, "When I've painted these walls with their blood. They'll blame the conjurer from Morrowind." The dunmer shrugged, and the werewolf pounced- much faster than the barmaid. A bluish flash lit up the tavern, the sound of thunder deafening in the close quarters. Torches, candles and the firepit went dark, and the following battle was only visible to those who had not managed to yet escape by a series of thunder flashes and red-gold burst of flame. When it was over, the barmaid lay dead across her own bar, dripping blood, her features half-human, half-wolf, her hair singed and skin blacked in some places. She was cut deeply across the chest, though the blade that had made the wound was nowhere in evidence. The dunmer sat slouched at a corner table, nursing a tankard of ale. When the guards burst in, swords drawn and demanding answers, he merely handed them a scroll. A bounty, signed by the Jarl herself, for the Wolf of Darklight Tower. “A thousand drakes,” he said, wiping sweat from his brow, to the speechless guard, “And I keep the body... for dissection and study, of course.” [/hider] Skills: Venym is a mage, accomplished in destruction and alteration. His primary scholarly interest is in necromancy and daedric magic, and he is most skilled at conjuration. Several lifetimes worth of experience in wandering Tamriel have made him a canny adventurer, with quick wits and basic survival skills in the wild. Equipment: Dunmer robes in the Telvanni style, worn by many years of travel. An amulet of silver and volcanic glass, enchanted A plain wooden staff, engraved with Telvanni sigils. Hunting knife. Birthsign: The Apprentice Misc: Venym is primarily interested in this expedition as an opportunity to study Nordic draugr and the arts of ancient nordic necromancy.