[hider Sait] [center][img]https://fontmeme.com/temporary/8237a35e98affa4a01475adea11ca578.png[/img] [b]Sait [Say-Et] Sunfall | The Migrant Mentalist | Redguard | Male [/b][/center] [B]Family Origins:[/B] [indent]Initially, Sait’s family were from Sentinel, Hammerfell - but Sait spent his formative years in High Rock, and a good many travelling Tamriel as a raggamuffin researcher. He considers himself to be a man without a nation; or else, a man whose country is in the people he works with.[/indent] [B]Appearance:[/B] [indent]Sait is a tall and lean figure; thin but not without the tell-tale toning of a body inherently built for resilience. Raised in the traditional Redguard way- that is, by the blade- Sait is as sturdy as a man with fluctuating food incomes could be. His face is long, but kind; his eyes the honeyed colour of amber, they glister hopefully in spite of the weight of others' woes. They are oft underfixed by the shadows of restless nights and long days, however. His complexion is that of a dark rosewood, deep and warm - and broken up about his lower mouth by his facial hair, a burgundy beard tailored to a goatee. Being of humble origins, and oft deprived, Sait has made no habit of cutting his hair - he wears it, thick tresses of warm-hued Auburn, in a chaotic twisted bun, clasped with a golden bond. Nonetheless, the volume means it carries with it a rebellious streak - and generally there are strands which, being too keen, instead hang in loosely-curled drills about his face. Prior to this crisis, Sait regularly changed his clothes to compliment local fashions - but his final tarrying to Falkreath was unplanned, so he is wearing something reminiscent of his Redguard garb; black harem pants and a similarly pitch leather tunic, embroidered with bands of silver and over-crossed by the dark-tanned leather strap of his scabbard. About his waist, a woven belt of white and red fabric slings across and down to his left hip. The arrangement is shawled beneath an open-breasted white cloak, hemmed in black and gold - and above it all, crossing his scabbard's strap in the other direction, is an oak-coloured satchel.[/indent] [B]Equipment:[/B] [indent]Sadia, Sait's scimitar - His sister Eno's best design, forged by a Breton blacksmith. A coin purse worked of a black suede; 100 septims.[/indent] [B]Misc. Possessions:[/B] [indent] - A heavy, leather-bound notebook containing Sait's research; it is sewn from patches of red hide and closed with a flintlock-style lock. - A darkly hued leather satchel, wide at the base and sewn from hide. - Several inkwells, wrapped in cloth. - Parchment paper and envelopes. - Pencils and quills. - A golden hair clasp, forged by Eno. - A copy of his first series of publications, [I]To The Far Shores and Back - A Treatise on Mundus and Mind.[/I] - An incomplete sequel to the aforementioned [I]To The Far Shores and Back[/I], with the working title [I]To Sovengarde and Back - The Nord - Perspective on Mundus and the Mind.[/I] - A flint and tinder.[/indent] [B]Family and Associations:[/B] [indent]- [b]Jed Sunfall[/b] - Father, deceased. Once a gentle priest, Jed succumbed to madness in old age, and, unable to care for himself, died bitter and confused. - [b]Mother[/b] - Deceased. - [b]Eno Larrin[/b] - Eldest Sister, proprietress of a small merchant company operating out of Camlorn. - [b]Immara Sunfall[/b] - Elder Sister, making ends meet in Sentinel. - [b]Torran Larrin[/b] - Brother-in-Law, pseudo-parental figure and all around fun fella. Blessed with the undeniable gift of the gab. - [b]Somebody’s Sundries[/b] - The humble Larrin mercantile endeavour, based in Camlorn. - [b]The Illusion and Restoration faculties of Winterhold[/b] - Fellow researchers, with whom Sait has shared lengthy correspondence. - [b]Various, lesser academics[/b] - Don't think of themselves as such.[/indent] [B]Favoured Skills:[/B] [indent][i]Speechcraft [Highly Proficient][/i] Sait is an old friend you've only just met; his verbal talents lying in a predisposition towards camaraderie and kindness. He is persuasive not on the basis that he is deceptive, but due to his good nature and his ability to read others; he picks his words carefully, and broadcasts sincerity. It is not just that Sait is a ‘trained talker’, though he is - Sait has dedicated his life to talking to others, and to persuading them to open the darkest vaults of their hearts to him. [i]Illusion [Highly Proficient][/i] Sait has always had an aptitude for illusions, though he was not always so proud of it - as a wain he worked silhouettes and shadows into more comforting shapes to ease his suffering father's fears. On instinct and from stolen glances at tabooed books. Many years later, with the aid of many a compatriot mage, such a skill would develop into Sait's [i]Pacify[/i] technique. Likewise, to understand peace is to understand chaos, and in walking his path he has learned to use the psychology of those who would hurt him or others against them. After all, medicine is a double-edged sword - potions and poisons are indistinguishable out of their bottles. [i]Swordplay [Moderately Proficient][/i] Back when the old man's sword-arm was still strong, he raised Sait in the way of his ancestors… by the sword. When Jeb could no longer be trusted with a blade, it fell to Eno to keep the old ways alive. Though not as fervent a student as some other Redguard youth, Sait values Sadia and his capacity to use her greatly - one must have a weapon when one travels alone. [i]Restoration [Somewhat Proficient][/i] An inevitable element of Sait's walking the healing path: some people's minds fracture due to a treacherous body. And who better to comfort the sick than one who can heal with a touch?[/indent] [B]Spell List:[/B] [indent][b]Pacify[/b] Sait evokes wistful memories, and calm reverence which quells the urge towards violence. It is a moment from history, gold-hued and more perfect than it ever could have been - and for him it is a shade of childhood, where his fledgling magic smoothed the fury of his fitting father. [b]Rout[/b] Having studied minds in crisis, Sait has built quite a repertoire of nightmares to induce - but none is more effective at scaring off a foe than the inexplicable, unexplainable dread. [b]Rally[/b] Those overwhelmed by life can be pacified, and given due rest - but for those overcome by malaise, by existential dread, Sait has found that the more effective route is rallying them back to their feet. [b]Muffle[/b] A hold out from childhood, Sait learned to muffle his steps before anything else - lest his father hear him coming, and catch him practicing his tricky magic. [b]Fast Healing[/b] Though Sait has great empathy for those whose minds are elsewhere, some are violent. He doesn’t begrudge them this- his own father was likewise inclined- so in lieu of reacting harshly, Sait has learned to take care of himself. [b]Healing Hands[/b] Most of the unwell are not violent, though. More often than not, [i]they[/i] are persecuted. Tortured as treatment, beaten and broken under the misconception that fragile docility is recovery. In such a case, any good carer of the mind must be ready to heal the harmed.[/indent] [B]History:[/B] [indent]Sait's father was a madman. This was not all he was, but by the end, it was all that remained of him. All that mattered. Madness had hollowed him out; it grew fat on his accomplishments, on his quiet pride and gentle valour, and all the while it ravaged him from within. The slowest and most terrible of poisons - it overcame even Redguard resilience. And when it was done with his thoughts, and he was well and truly blind in his mind's eye, it chewed on his body - until the muscle atrophied and the teeth fell out of his head. Jed Sunfall had been a family man, once; a holy man, even. But he died a stranger to them all, family and flock. In his final moments, he thought his children spiritual lepers, and their long-departed mother his last confidant. He cried his woes to the open air of her, comforted only by the shadows and smoke his son spun from nothing; the illusory magics Sait taught himself in secret, to combat the horrors only Jed could see. But he could not fight the battle for Jed's mind. Sait would always remember that he had died scared; the howling ghost of a quiet and thoughtful man. Jed had been a priest of Tu'whacca, and a guide to all who endeavoured to make their way to the Far Shores; a steady hand on the tiller who had, himself, tried to turn the tide of many a man's madness. But, as surely he knew, it was not enough to be versed in verse. Being a holy man, all who endeavoured to treat him took it to be an illness of the spirit- Sep's haunting hunger- and prayed for him. Salved him, saved him in the eyes of their Gods. And yet still he perished, lost long before he died - and truly dead in death. Not whole enough to see the Far Shores again. Such circumstances shook Sait's faith, and though he had taught himself the tabooed fundamentals of illusory magic, he did not grow up mystically inclined. He knew of the many Divines, of course - the Redguard pantheon and their neighbours - but he began to suspect young that men and Mer had more say in their lives than they might otherwise have liked. In the same way, he supposed folks often overestimated the interest of Gods. And yet, something had taken Jeb's soul from him, of this much Sait was certain. Some terrible, transcendental hunger had cannibalised him from within - encroaching on the hearth of his heart until the warmth was wicked away, and all else was snuffed. But if not Divines, if not a spiritual sickness… then [i]what?[/i] The pursuit of answers to such questions became Sait's ouvre. Sait was not yet a teen when they interred his father to the ground, to wander forever - devoid of the guidance he had offered others in life. It was not a ceremony which brought him peace - it seemed to him that it was all reverence to a tragic mystery. But there was nothing to be done - even in death, Jed's affliction could not be seen. Following his passing, Sait became fixated with maladies of the mind - madness, melancholy and malaise. What sways a man to turn his weapon on himself, or on those he loves? Magic can sometimes alleviate these pains, but then, what does it affect to do this? Why do so many mages likewise go mad? It became a fixation. In lieu of a guardian, and of family to see them otherwise cared for, Sait's eldest sister- Eno- took it upon herself to provide for them. At first, life was paltry - she worked iron with intermediate skill, better accustomed to accoutrements than armaments. Her wares sold poorly, and often came back to her in pieces. And Sait could scarcely help her, for his fixation on his father's madness stupified him into an existential paralysis. He couldn't focus his mind for all the haul in Hammerfell. But Eno was young, strong and bonny - and soon enough made a good match with a visiting Breton merchant, hoping to establish further arms trades between High Rock and the City of Sentinel. Torran, Eno's newfound husband, seemed a good match for her. He was spirited and keen, but nonetheless kind, and his merriment was boundless. He carried about him a bonhomie that was irresistable, and he drank Eno's love to its lees like a drunkard. In many ways, he was their late father's antithesis - but he made for a strong role model in young Sait's life, and took him for family at first they met. [i]"We're our very own little Daggerfall Covenant! One land, one emperor, right? Shame they named it after such a lousy city..."[/i] Sait was scarcely 13 when Torran took Eno to Camlorn, with him in tow - though their middle sister, Immara, remained in Sentinel to mind what remained of their father's estate. Jed had left little for them to inherit, and nothing they could take with them. A family home that Sait had no memory of joy in. But in Camlorn, Torran welcomed them to all he had - to his beds and business. To a life beyond the fallout of their father's decline. And yet still, Sait could not find peace in himself - cared for in comfort, his mind returned time and again to the invisible affliction of his father's mind. Though in time such things became baser - a simmering desire to know the workings and misworkings of people, always at play beneath his day-to-day adolescence. Torran was sure to keep him busy enough that such things only truly plagued him on quiet High Rock nights. What struck Sait most about Torran, ultimately, was not his generosity - though it was evident in all he did for them. Sait came to love and admire a great many things about the man, but the thing he meditated on most was Torran's skill with [i]people;[/i] with [i]speech.[/i] In the way of merchants, his business depended on barter - but this man did not simply hock wares; he sold airs along with them. Evoked value from his words; spoke new reality into being in the same way a mage might have conjured it. People swayed to the wind of his enthused effusion. People had sought Jed out when Sait was very young, seeking guidance - but even in doing so with the reverence of believers, nobody had ever sought his company with the enthusiasm that total strangers soon sought Torran's. And they told him the stories of their lives, free of all charge save a joke and a witticism. If Sait were ever going to understand [i]people,[/i] and the hidden corners of their minds, such a skill seemed essential. [i]"Torran, have you a minute?"[/i] [i]"For family? Always!"[/i] [i]"Can you be taught to speak? Like you do, I mean. Can I learn it?"[/i] [i]"Lad, not only can it be learned -- it can be [b]mastered."[/b][/i] And so Sait subsequently began his journey into speech-craft. Under Torran's tutelage, and with the willing engagement of friendly regulars, he began to learn the way of words. How it is that strangers become fast friends, and the invisible machinery beneath it all. Torran confided in him the secrets of conversational strategy and social chameleonism; banter, baudiness and bardship. Such lessons continued for Sait's teendom, and he worked diligently in his brother-in-law's service for so long as he received them; but as time pressed on, and Sait threatened to become a man, he began to feel unfulfilled. There was only so long that he could stave the ghost of his father's afflictions off. In growing older, he had come to look very much like Jed - back when the old man's face had been calm. When he'd smiled, and laughed softly, and waxed philosophical to his gaumless young. Jed had given him most every feature, save his instability - but the nature of the affliction was in itself maddening, and the root of it was no more evident in having mastered speaking to the sane. Sait was not his father, despite all seemings. It was time to do what he and his colleagues could not - it was time to sate his cold, fearful hunger. It was time to dissect madness. The Mad were not quite so easy to talk to as the sane. Not only due to their condition, but the [i]conditions[/i] it otherwise left them in. Sait began to intern himself at temples and to local healers, not as a healer but as a comforting presence - and in doing so he saw men at their most pitiful. Deeply hollowed creatures; soldiers returning from the wars with eyes like smoke. Folks broken by the pressure - addicts fighting themselves. People whose every day was a new sphere of Oblivion. It seemed to Sait that madness was not one thing, but many - a spectrum of conditions left to linger, beyond the pale of potions and paltry spellwork. But those with enough presence of mind to speak spoke volumes. Madness was a mystery to all but the mad - they were doctors unto themselves, scholars of the soul. Forced to introspection, and willing to share with a willing and non-judgemental ear. Like prisoners through the bars of their cages. They likewise marvelled at the comforting things he worked from air; in High Rock, illusory magic did not carry the taboo of his homeland, and that pressed Sait to further flex its capacity to heal the mentally unwell. Those that Sait worked under praised his efforts as humanitarian, but fruitless - those whose struggles he heard were beyond help. It was a small mercy. Such cruel compliments only further fuelled the fervor of Sait's undertaking. "There has to be more than this. It isn't enough that people should suffer in company." Sait felt that he had learned a lot through conversation alone - that those willing to speak to him had given him an insight beyond what watching alone could have. But he wanted to do more than listen, now. He wanted to provide the relief Jed had sorely needed - and he wanted to do more than cast comforting shadows in order to do it. So he resolved to study; to find his niche among those who would otherwise see these souls as lost. Later that same year, Sait departed High Rock, and now a young man of 23, he began his journey across the lands of men. He travelled from High Rock to Hammerfell, and from Hammerfell to Cyrodiil; and all the while he visited upon the domains of the mad. The dark spaces into which the rest of Tamriel stuffed their disparate, desperate folk. All of them from different places, practicing different magics and philosophies - but all alike in that their lives were often hard, and underpinned always by war, tragedy and stress. Mad houses were places of squalor - and the kindest of them were otherwise places of sterility, where maladies of the mind were not cured, but made silent through tedium and torture. Everywhere he went, he broadened his perspective - he came to build theories and models of madness, even as the living conditions of his clients wore at the edges of his soul. Not that life was especially glamorous on the road. At 26, Sait was nigh-penniless, and publishing his research from the eaves of [i]The Witch's Tit,[/i] a graceless tavern in the port city of Anvil. He was on a crusade of tireless, tiring letter writing - corresponding with several colleges long after they had expressed disinterest in his theories. It was becoming evident that this was a field of research yet to be sown. [i]Dearest Professor Aluvirin, I am writing to propose to you that…[/i] [i]… and to whom it may concern, I am reaching out in search of like-minded individuals who…[/i] [i]Dr. Tauvurn, I’ve conducted my own research on this topic, and…[/i] [i] Dear Mr. Mallum, I know you told me to stop writing to you, but I really do think…[/i] It took so long for any meaningful reply to return that Sait almost forgot that there was an end goal to the tedium of writing. It had become something of a ritual - in the mornings he would visit the lodgings of lunacy, and in the noon he would write until his hand began to cramp. Somewhere in there, somehow, several ales would manifest themselves about his makeshift desk, too. Such mysteries were as unsolvable as madness. And then Gallenheim wrote to him. Gallenheim- [i]Gal-[/i] was a 'High Elf' of the progressive persuasion. A man who, like Sait, had come to see madness as something to be understood. He had taken some interest in Sait's writings, and in the prospect of therapeutic illusions - particularly as his sister had come to be haunted by hysteria. Through a regular and spirited correspondence, Gal disclosed his intentions to create an asylum in Southern Skyrim - a novel new facility intended to provide research-based alchemical and magical treatment. But he was himself, ostensibly, a man of fickle health - and so he was unable to conduct the necessary study alone. That was serendipity enough for Sait - with Gal's funding, he travelled North and into Skyrim, where the wind carried such a chill that it made him feel that his blood might congeal. Under Gal's guidance, Sait began to interview the Nord population, and visited again upon the places where they housed their mad. A hardy people, they oft had little to say in the way of their deeper feelings - though he found that they often lived short and stressful lives, and old age was nigh-synonymous with madness there. That didn't make the journey fruitless, however - in travelling Skyrim, young Sait began to become better acquainted with the country's small intelligentsia. The closed cult of academics who moved in similar circles to his own - people he would never have thought to write to, as their work seldom exceeded the borders of their cities, nevermind Skyrim as a whole. It was during one such encounter, with a mage Sait had petitioned for help in his spellcraft, that he learned that things were not so clear cut as they seemed. In prioritising people, individually, Sait had lost sight of the bigger picture - the all-overarching war for the Ruby Throne. A battle fought not just on the field of combat, but through subterfuge - sometimes unwittingly. Gallenheim, he came to learn, was a work of fiction - a wealthy ghost, whose prospective asylum existed in nobody's paperwork. It seemed likely to Sait's new academic friends, themselves a mixture of conscientious objectors and proud supporters of the Ebonheart Pact, that the entire pretense of Sait's visit was a ruse. A means to learn of local vulnerabilities, to perform a sort of surreal reconnaissance through an unwitting proxy - on behalf of The Aldmeri Dominion. Sait was disheartened, he was outraged - but for the first time, he was amongst peers. Though this was an injustice, he was not without recompense. He cut contact with "Gallenheim" immediately, but continued his research with the understanding that [i]he[/i] would like to found a mental health facility - a place for the dishevelled and disenfranchised mad to feel safe and seek comfort at the hands of a new kind of healer. A place men like his father deserved. He remained in Skyrim for two years, refining his methods with the help of his new colleagues, and establishing himself as a minor name in a fledgling field. By the time he was 28, however, the war was beginning to encroach - it was in the air that something significant was coming, and it seemed wise to leave when the locals began to grow increasingly incensed about it all. He made for the South, with the intention of returning to Anvil to collect some belongings, and then sailing on to Hammerfell, so that he might share what little money remained of The Aldmeri Dominion's [i]generous research grants[/i] with his spinster sister Immara. It was shortly before he'd cross the border into Cyrodiil that he learned of Raxus' upset victory - his sudden and prolific rise to power, seemingly from nowhere. By all accounts, a bloodied barbarian sat in the place of dragon's blood - and the Imperial City was well beneath his thumb. Travelling through such a place would have been foolish for even the most prolific of warriors, nevermind a would-be academic. Having no delusions as to his nature, Sait made plans to leave Skyrim through Hammerfell directly; but the world felt different beneath Raxus' rule, there was something fundamentally unbalanced in it all. The air tasted different. That unbalance was no more evident than when the aurora descended, though. Ribbons of ensnaring light, unfolding against Skyrim's darkling sky like a world-wide werelight. The plan changed again - such a thing had to be the work of a masterful illusionist, an entire [i]band[/i] of them, and surely if such a thing were the case, his Nord colleagues would be well aware. Instead of Hammerfell, Sait veered towards Falkreath, and all along the way he met folks possessed by a strange and preternatural calm. Compelled also by the notion that something had shifted the [i]minds[/i] of Skyrim's people, Sait's urgency increased. By the time he reached Markarth, terrifying bliss had set in. The same Nords who had rattled swords at Raxus' upstart name were drifting towards a [i]fondness[/i] for him. A generation of war, and the outrage it inspired, wiped from the zeitgeist of a country whose denizens prided themselves on battle. It would have been a beautiful thing, Sait supposed, had it been consensual. Was there such a thing as positive madness? Time and research would tell. In Markarth, Sait descended upon the offices of a mage with whom he had worked to devise comforting illusions, and the two talked fervently of the news. To Sait's surprise, this keen Ebonheart enthusiast seemed to welcome the new regime -- and offered Sait a bed, so that the two could discuss such matters, and how they might affect his research going forwards, in the morning. Sait awoke to an armed guard, in the most macabre or armour. Sait's father was a madman - and now the whole world was mad.[/indent] [B]Personality:[/B] [indent]Sait learned young that the world was unjust - that it was chaos, and that it would do undue harm to any and everybody. He learned that the Gods did not always heed a prayer, and that good men died the same as sinners. As a young man, it bred a coldness in him. A chamber of doubt, a paralysing fear of the enemy within his mind. But that coldness is gone now. Sait has outgrown his existential nihilism: in volunteering himself to the worst conditions, and mingling amongst the living damned, he has come to practice a personal philosophy of proactive happiness. Of kindness not in spite of cruelty, but because of it. The world is hard and cruel, it's true - but candlelight seems a great deal brighter in the dark. A passing friend's helping hand means more to a drowning man than a rock out to sea. An ironic perspective, perhaps, as Sait has never remained in one place long enough to have friends of his own. Sait is a gentle soul, though one with a decent sword-arm, and he believes fundamentally that it is the duty of the well to uphold the weak - that a person ought to be a friend to the world. In his work, he has come to know a great many people whose lives turned on the callousness of others - people interred as punishment for an illness no soul has yet sussed. But in showing them even basic kindness, they have opened to him as flowers do. And he carries that experience with him always. Being kind, however, does not spare Sait from being strange. He is a man of habitual ritual, and of vast over-presumption. Oftentimes frantic in the throes of his research, Sait has come to adopt some of the peculiarities of the people he has studied. He is terrified of insects, particularly the small ones, after a client divulged their delusions of subdermal intruders - beetles beneath the skin, spiders beneath the eyelids. Every itch is an end. He's likewise sceptical of the open ocean, and enraptured by the glare of a wildfire. He can scarcely sleep on cloudless nights, as he is strangely compelled to believe that something insidious may fall from the stars - and he is certain that his sword, Sadia, has a living will to her. Still, these are mostly harmless - there are far worse things uttered in the halls of the mad.[/indent] [/hider]