[b]Name:[/b] William Ascot

[b]Age:[/b] 16

[b]Race:[/b] Human

[b]Gender:[/b] Male

[b]Appearance:[/b]
[img]https://i.imgur.com/Zcm3CTZ.png[/img]

[b]Talent:[/b] William's talent is Narrative/Stories, a power that sounds weak, until one realizes that everyone and everything in this world is part of one, larger, (hopefully) neverending story. With this power, William can find out the underlying stories of people, places, and objects using the right magic circles and runes, as well as give mundane objects the powers of legendary weapons (also through runes). Not merely that, but he can also make the stories of others easier or harder by manipulating coincidences for and against them, even to the point of invoking a Deus ex Machina in order to resolve an outstanding difficulty. However, trying to manipulate the world's neverending story comes with a cost, and this cost can be destructive for William or those he chooses to bless.

[b]History:[/b] William was born in a tiny village in the Neutral Zone, where various Human and Nonhuman races lived together. His father was a bard while his mother was a herbalist, and their settlement was prosperous enough to afford a small library, one manned by a person who called himself a Wizard (whether he really was one or not is irrelevant). As he grew up, William had two best friends, a Harpy Girl by the name of Clarimonde and a Human boy by the name of Harald. They played together, were educated together, and learned of the world together, including about the stories of the various oppressive nations around them.

This education was accelerated by the arrival of Alexander Ascot, William's older brother, who was a mercenary who fought to bring money back home to his hometown (and who was also one of the reasons why such a small village was able to afford a library). Alexander brought warnings of the Staria Empire's recent aggression in its quest to slay all Nonhuman races, and adviced the village to look to its defenses, even paying for the construction of a ditch and a wooden palisade of sharpened logs. But those were not enough for when the Staria Empire finally sent a raiding force to exterminate William's hometown.

And this would have been William's first acquaintance with the cliche of the 'Doomed Hometown', if not for the fact that the local 'Wizard' turned out to have power after all. As the Staria Empire's soldiers began their attack, tossing torches at the houses to try and burn them down, the Wizard raised his hands, and several runes appeared inside the village's ditch - The ditch was actually the outside of a magic circle, while the wooden palisade had runes hidden inside its logs!

The Magic Circle was to summon the God of Stories himself in order to save the town, and he did - The Staria soldiers instantly vanished, the burned buildings were restored to normal, and anyone who died was ressurected.

However, there was a price for such a Deus ex Machina, as Alexander Ascot and the Wizard were found in the middle of the village square, transformed into jade stone. The price for summoning the God of Stories for such a 'small', non-epic matter was this - That Alexander and the Wizard be frozen into statues until the village raises up a Hero who can please the God of Stories himself. And William, upon finding this out through the notes left behind by the Wizard, decided to be that hero, and seek out 'The Dragon', the legendary wizard of wizards, and learn from him personally!

[b]Other:[/b] Below are potential spells for William for when he gets an apprenticeship.

[i]Convenience of Coincidence[/i] - William can make a coincidence happen that benefits himself or another person, whether it is finding an expert on dragons on a quest to slay (or befriend) a dragon, causing an accident in a neighboring room to happen when he needs to sneak out of his classroom to do something he thinks is important, or just getting a letter meant for someone else sent to him so he can learn its secrets. The cost of this ability is that it can only be used once every page of the IC, which in turn is explained away as 'when the forces of Narrative say it's convenient'.

[i]Reader of Existence[/i] - William, by touching a piece of ground, a building, or even an inanimate object, can conjure a holographic illusion of important events that happened on the ground or building or occured within range of the object. This illusion, being based on physical light and not mental effects, cannot be dispelled by the usual anti-illusion countermeasures, and keeps on 'playing' until the record of the most important/pertinent events (aka information William was looking for) have played out.

[i]Imitation better than the Original[/i] - William can duplicate Legendary Weapons (the equivalents of Excalibur, Mjolnir, and the Spear of Destiny), by mixing metals/wood/stone with his blood. The more of his blood used in the re-creation of the item, the more powerful the duplicate is; the upper limit is the original power of the item. And no, magical healing cannot replace William's blood and thus provide a workaround around this requirement.

[i]Hero Calls for Aid[/i] - William can distort time, space, and probability to call on whatever allies he has made all throughout the current RP, calling them to come to his side at his time of need. The only requirement of this is that 1.) He genuinely needs help, 2.) It is the climax of a personal story arc or an arc of the RP itself.

[i]Ascot ex Machina[/i] - When his help is called for, time, space, and probability distort for William so that he can come to the aid of his friends just in the nick of time; the requirement is that 1.) they call for him specifically, and 2.) they genuinely need him. Whether he can actually help is another question entirely.