[b]Name:[/b] Father Ragnar Hjálmgrímr [b]Age:[/b] 19 [b]Height/Weight:[/b] 5'5, 145 lbs [b]Race:[/b] Muraadan, Clan Ravn [b]Appearance:[/b] [img]https://i.imgur.com/55yafkg.jpg[/img] Boyish and short of stature, Ragnar is no one's image of a hardened war priest. Though he is a man grown by most estimates, Ragnar still possesses the soft unhoned face of a boy five years his younger, and although the merciless physical training of twelve years within the Red Seminary has granted him a lithe, agile and powerful physique, he will forever detest the body the Heart Lord gave him. Ragnar has a plain ordinary kind of face, the kind of face you would find on a shepherd boy out in the icefields of his homeland. To his great dismay, he has no scars or facial marring to speak of, as his role as the Protector of the group made it so that he didn't have to endure as much physical punishment as his fellow pupils during their long years of training. For as long as anyone can remember, Ragnar has kept his scalp shorn, as he has convinced himself that it makes his ether flow more smoothly. If he did allow his hair to grow, it would be a pale ashen blonde like his mother's, or so he thinks. Like all children of the Muraadan wastelands, Ragnar's body is tattooed with the runic markings of his birth clan. For reasons he doesn't enjoy talking about, he keeps these tattoos hidden as much as he can. When not wearing his Inquisitor's uniform, Ragnar favors a supple white cloak, lined with thick, heavy wolf fur. [b]Personality: [/b]In his darkest dreams, Ragnar envisions a different world. He loathes this existence, its rules and reality. The cruel, indifferent gods, the cold, the wars, the endlessly churning machines being fed by the blood of innocents, the savagery prevalent in all facets of society, if he was powerful enough he would tear this world apart, shatter it like so many remnants. If only he was-- No, he mustn't. Whenever these kinds of thoughts rise to the surface, Ragnar banishes them to that shadowed meadow within him, and he has become an old hand at protecting his truest feelings from others. Yes, if there is one thing Ragnar is good at, it's putting up shields, both emotional and magical. Ragnar strives to be happy, and to bring light and cheer to the dark halls of the Red Seminary. Whether it be throwing surprise birthday parties or making certain everyone has clean clothes and enough food, Ragnar has made it his mission to make the lives of his fellow pupils as carefree and happy as possible. He loves each and every one of his companions unconditionally... Everyone except for Mother Astraea, for whom he has complicated feelings for. Knowing that Astraea and other Inquisitors with similar abilities would be able to see through him in an instant, Ragnar keeps a constant "emotional aegis" veiling his most unholy feelings and desires, keeping them to the shadows while the bright, cheery boy performs in the light of the stage. He goes to sleep every night terrified of the Lanostran inquisitor one day becoming powerful enough to see through his little shield... Despite his natural dishonesty, his is an unbreakable force of spirit, a heart that beats no matter how much its stepped on. Being the Protector of the group, he must shed his own ether to keep the aegis going, an ordeal which allows the deathly cold to seep into his veins. This causes him immense pain and discomfort, but through years of training and the encouragement of his friends, he has learned to bear the freezing of his blood and protect his friends while outside the city, as only he can. [b]Background:[/b] Born to Clan Ravn in the wastelands of Muraad, Ragnar came from a family of miners. His father, a young ambitious craftsman with lofty goals, left the small village to seek a life in Magnagrad when Ragnar and his young sister were small children. Not a week after their father left, a group of Lanostran pirates, with an an apostate priest leading them, raided their village. Ragnar and his sister were bid to run by their mother, and so he grabbed his sister by the hand and ran. They didn't stop, not even when the screams rang through the night. Eventually, he and his sister reached the icelands, past the boundary of the village's small aegis, and the cold quickly stole its way into their blood. The young boy held his sister close as the darkness closed in on them both. When Ragnar woke up, he found himself in the hold of a Varyan transport ship, completely alone save for a few soldiers sleeping next to him. He looked in vain for his younger sister, but could not find her. Eventually, one of the Varyan soldiers woke up, and told him to go "speak to the priest up on deck". The priest, a Varyan inquisitor named Mother Natalya, told him of what had happened. They had been tracking the rogue apostate, who had been an 11th-year pupil of the Red Seminary before abandoning the Church, for many months. The young apostate had been judged to be extremely dangerous, as he partnered with a band of Lanostran deserters who had been on the run since their Goddess' surrender to Varya many years passed. Mother Natalya was having difficulty hunting them, but had finally pinned their location in Muraad. She looked Ragnar in the eyes and apologized to him for not being able to save his village in time, but assured the boy that the apostate and his men were now corpses. When Ragnar had finally gathered the courage to ask about his sister, the Inquisitor met him with an unconcerned look on her face. "That girl next to you? She died of exposure. When we found you her skin was black with frostbite. You, on the other hand, somehow survived. You were warm to the touch." The Inquisitor then ordered him to stop sobbing, and explained that she could detect a torrent of ether sleeping within him. Without offering him a choice, she then brought him to the halls of the Red Seminary. [b]Talents/Ethereal Abilities: [/b] [i][b]Mist:[/b][/i] An ability that manifested during Ragnar's formative years in the Red Seminary, it allows Ragnar to summon a cloud of ethereal mist around himself and to control its volume and luminosity. With enough concentration, he can cause it to become blindingly bright or dark enough to act as smoke. Due to his lifelong concentration on honing his aegis magic, this ability has been largely ignored and thus lacks in refinement, power and focus. Ragnar has very little control of it, and though he has played with its use a few times in training to attempt to trick his fellow pupils, it isn't very effective when used against them, as trained war priests can easily see through the mist through sheer force of will and concentration. [b][i]Aegis:[/i][/b] Ragnar's main focus, it is among the most essential ethereal magics in the whole of the empire. Every warband of Inquisitors must have a Protector among its ranks. This Protector's duty is to uphold the aegis, a protective veil that acts very much in the same vein as the continent-wide palings that shield the population from the cold, but on a much smaller scale. In order to uphold an aegis, a particularly powerful priest with a massive ether pool must be chosen at a young age to specifically be trained in its summoning and maintenance. Aegis are not fueled by the ether from other sources, but from a priest's own pool, thus the natural magical reservoirs of a Protector must be substantial, as the longer the aegis is maintained, the more cold can seep into their blood. [b][i]Dual ice picks/scythes:[/i][/b] All Muraadan children know how to use icepicks, as they are born and live on the frozen wastelands and must be skilled in their use less they fall victim to the ever shifting ice fields. Ragnar has retained some of what his mother taught him many years ago, and has continued training in the use of these tools. He has replaced the icepicks with miniature scythes, but the concept still remains the same. Given his small stature, he is more agile than most of the members of his squad, and though he isn't particularly strong, he is talented enough in the use of these weapons that he can cause serious damage to anyone who manages to get close enough to risk disrupting the aegis. [b]Personal Seal:[/b] A blue moth encased in frost. [b]Character Relationships: [/b] [hider=Father Ragnar's relationships] [b]Father Rodion[/b] [@Drakey] Ragnar was always in awe of Rodion's prodigious mechanist's talent. So much so that as children, the younger Ragnar would always hang around and watch the older boy work on his machines with rapt fascination. Even though the two rarely spoke (despite Ragnar's incessant attempts at getting Rodrion to open up) Ragnar looks back on those days fondly. Hours would go by with Ragnar watching the mechanist at work, with nary a word spoken between the two, and that seemed to suit Rodrion just fine. Rodrion, sweating in the Seminary's metalworks -- a place foreign to most pupils-- seeing him down there after morning training was like clockwork for Ragnar, and he delighted in discovering whatever new projects Rodrion was working on. These days, Ragnar and Rodrion still maintain their cordial but distant relationship. Still, Ragnar worries over the mechanist and often thinks about him. It took many years for Ragnar to give up on ever truly becoming Rodrion's friend, which deeply saddened the youngest war priest, but with the two becoming fully ordained Inquisitors, it was high time for Ragnar to grow up and take his position as the Protector of the group more seriously, which didn't leave much time for constantly worrying about his fellow pupil. [b]Father Hassan[/b] [@Sisyphus] & [b]Father Yerokhin[/b] [@The Angry Goat] Ragnar loves Hassan and Stina unconditionally. Ragnar, who is among the youngest and smallest of the group, sees the two of them as brothers, as his difficulties with training and ether manipulation almost caused him to fail the first year and were it not for the two of them pushing him to his limit and making certain he would survive his training, he would have either perished with the fresh meat of those beginning pain-filled years or been shipped off to one of the lesser branches of the Church. Due to this, Ragnar's love, gratitude and admiration for the two older inquisitors knows no bounds, and as a result, to this day, he is always awkward around them. Whether it be straightening his back and deepening his voice whenever Stina passes by, or attempting to awkwardly replicate Hassan's devil may care attitude, Ragnar always overcompensates whenever the two of them are in the vicinity, a fact that isn't lost on either Hassan, Stina or anyone else in the group. [b]Mother Astraea[/b] [@deathbringer] Though Ragnar's has immeasurable respect for Astraea's skill in battle and believes her healing abilities to be essential to the group's survival, his feelings toward Astraea-- the person, and towards the entire nation of Lanostre itself, are complicated to say the least. Having his family massacred by Lanostran pirates has cultivated a silent hatred for the Goddess of the Trident within Ragnar, who he believes, in Her infinite power and omnipotence, could have easily stopped the slaughter of his mother and sister Herself. Though this burning enmity for the Lady has roiled within Ragnar since he was a boy, he tries to not let it color his feelings over Astraea, who he possessed a curt if not respectful relationship with. Knowing that Astraea and other Inquisitors with similar abilities would be able to see through him in an instant, Ragnar keeps a constant "emotional aegis" veiling his most unholy feelings and desires, keeping them to the shadows while the bright, cheery boy performs in the light of the stage. He goes to sleep every night terrified of the Lanostran inquisitor one day becoming powerful enough to see through his little shield... [b]Mother Tatiana[/b] [@OppositionJ] To Ragnar, Tatiana is one of the most important things in this world. For as long as he's known her, he has looked to her as a trusted sister and confidant. She is his rock, his secret keeper, his lantern in the dark. Their close-knit relationship being what it is, Tatiana is the only other person who knows of Ragnar's secret hatred for the gods, as he has spent long nights confiding his fears and worries to her. Years ago, when they were both twelve years old, he tried to convince her to run away with him and become apostates, but she managed to change his mind. Due to his unconditional love for her, she is the image that blossoms in his mind whenever the pain and exhersion of maintaining the aegis becomes too much for him to bear. She is what keeps him pushing through. Ragnar, Tatiana and Galahad, being the three among Phoenix warband with the deepest ether pools, often study together. As children, they forged a pact to learn as much from each other as they could and to become as powerful (if not more so) as their instructors, and for the past couple of years, when time permits, Ragnar has been teaching them how to summon an aegis in case he falls in battle. [b]Mother Ziotea[/b] [@shylarah] Ragnar and Tatiana have always had a mercurial relationship. Deep down, they understand each other, and even have the propensity to care about each other a great deal, but this realization comes through only after they've both had a massive argument and/or fight and are then forced to make up by the rest of the group. Ragnar, who prides himself in being the "responsible, mature one" and mother hen of the group, can be brought down by Ziotea very easily, whom he views as immature and bratty. In return, she sees him as fake and arrogant, and is the only one with the ability to make his cheery, cool-headed facade come tumbling down around him, the only one all too willing to remind him, through her barbs, that he is really just a dumb 19 year old kid with nary a shred of real-world experience on his shoulders. After all, compared to her life as an Omestrian street urchin in the slums of Magnagrad, his own childhood was comparatively serene. Though they are often at each other's throats, and both have hurt each other emotionally (and physically, at times) in the past, there is little doubt that Ragnar would put everything on the line for her if she was ever in danger. [b]Father Galahad[/b] [@vietmyke] Need to PM you about this one! [b]Father Ilya, Father Oren, and Mother Viveca[/b] [@Draken], [@CollectorOfMyst], [@Scout] Ragnar has often heard of the three most talented Inquisitors of Leviathan Company. Though he had never actually interacted with them during training, due to his own nervousness, he was always fascinated by the talk he heard about the three. Thus, when it was announced that they would be joining their warband on the Elurian expedition, he was beside himself with excitement. He has made sure to be as welcoming as possible to his three new companions, and has made certain to tell them as much as he can about his fellow Phoenix inquisitors and their quirks. Ragnar wants nothing more than for the three Inquisitors to feel at home, and though his over-eagerness might come off as annoying, his heart is certainly in the right place. [/hider]