[hider= Yuri, the Last Disciple]

Name: Yuri Byrgenkirk

Age: 39

Gender: Male

Appearance: Yuri is a small man with a wiry build, with a tight, muscular frame and posture generally reminiscent of a weasel. His face is lined and drawn, and his hair has gone prematurely white, and so he appears much older than he truly is. One of his eyes is bright blue and alive with the spark of madness, and the other is clouded over with milky cataracts. Even when adventuring he wears spotless white robes overtop a grey jumper, giving him the impression of a doctor or priest of some description.

Personality: There isn't much left of Yuri's sanity, but what he has left he makes great use of. Despite his constant, delusional rambling, he is still quick-witted and pragmatic, traits that have kept him alive as an artifact hunter. He has the focus and determination reserved for the ranks of the mad, and when presented with a project he finds intriguing, he will pursue it for days on end without food or rest. While he is gregarious about sharing the asinine goings-on of his delusional mind, he stays tight-lipped about his past and his personal research.

Brief Backstory: Much of Yuri's early history is lost along with his mind, but it is known that he grew up in a city in the hinterlands of some great forest that was teeming with magic-infused beasts. He aspired to become a magical researcher from an early age, and became a respected name in his field. For a time, he worked directly with the Legendary Sage Hargrave the Enigmatic, but it is said that some cataclysmic accident both ended Yuri's apprenticeship and robbed him of his wits.

Since then Yuri has worked as a freelance artifact hunter, specializing in the most arcane and bizarre artifacts. While he doesn't mind selling off most of what he finds, he withholds certain artifacts in his possession viciously. Despite his insanity, he has proved surprisingly competent as a hunter, and has designed several tools himself to aid him in his adventures. He seems set on tracking down more bizarre artifacts to aid him in his private magical research, but to what end this research will hold, none can say for sure.

Skills: Even though he's lost his mind, Yuri is still an expert in magical artifacts, and has extensive knowledge of their construction and functioning. He's a capable artifact hunter, adept in exploration and combat when it is called for. He is also a capable engineer, and has designed some gadgets of his own to aid in his travels.

Abilities: Yuri has a knack for activating the most exotic magical artifacts that few others in the world could get to work. This includes the artifacts in his possession, the secrets to which he guards jealously.

Equipment: Yuri carries a variety of bizarre tools and arcane artifacts on his person, along with general-purpose hunter equipment. His primary weapon is the "Aspergillum," a chemical dispersal weapon of his own design. The Aspergillum can be loaded with a variety of chemical agents, such as incendiary fluid, liquid nitrogen, or an aerosolized toxic "quicksilver" concoction that Yuri also designed. These chemical fuels can also be loaded into grenade-sized bombs, which Yuri affectionately refers to as his "cocktails." Yuri's secondary weapon is more straightforward, an electrified mace with a spiked head, wreathed in blue sparks when activated.

The artifacts Yuri carries are among the strangest of their number seen in this world. He calls his most-used artifact the "Moon Augur," which at first glance does not appear to be an artifact as much as a small, magical creature. Its appearance is misleading, as it is an artifact that opens a portal only a few inches wide on activation. From this portal, one to a half-dozen powerful, sticky tentacles will emerge, which Yuri can direct mentally to grab things, push things away, or pull them closer to him. The portal only stays open for a few seconds at a time, after which it and the tentacles vanish. Sometimes small objects get stuck to the tentacles and get pulled through the portal; where they end up, not even Yuri knows for sure.

Yuri's other artifacts include the "Celestial Chorus," another creature-resembling artifact that creates magical projectiles that home in on enemies before exploding, and the "Heavenly Eye," an eyeball-shaped artifact that Yuri has replaced one of his own eyes with. The Heavenly Eye can be activated with great effort by Yuri to produce an arcane missile similar to those summoned by the Celestial Chorus, but cannot home in on enemies and is much more exhausting for Yuri to use.

Faction: None, freelancer. Formerly a student of Hargrave the Enigmatic.[/hider]

[hider=Nadre the Serpent]
Name: Nadre, of Clan Blackfang

Age: 26

Gender: Male

Appearance: Being snake-kin beastfolk, Nadre possesses a blend of humanoid and serpentine characteristics. His yellow eyes' pupils are vertical slits, his mouth is filled with fangs, barbed predator's teeth, and a long, sensitive tongue. Nadre keeps all of the hair on his body shaved or waxed, his build is lanky but muscular, with dark skin and patches of black scales along his limbs, back, and belly. A short, black-scaled tail juts out just behind his rump, but typically stays tucked in his clothes. Knowing how mistrustful humans are of beastfolk, particularly the snake-kin, Nadre usually dresses in public in loose-flowing dark robes, including a hood and mask that cover his face.

Personality: Among those he is unfamiliar with, which is essentially anyone outside of his extended family, Nadre comes across as a stoic, humorless individual, with all of the unflinching pragmatism, predatory cunning, and wild-born brutality that the snake-kin are renowned and loathed for. Privately, Nadre is a voice of reason among his kin, open-minded and full of curiosity about the world outside his forest home. He loves his family dearly and would go to great lengths to ensure their protection. Nadre is also deeply spiritual, and is greatly reverent of his family's ancestor spirits.

Brief Backstory: Nadre, like most of the snake-kin beastfolk, was born and grew up in the Black Forest, a forbidden expanse of untamed wilderness at the outskirts of Fuso territory. Terrible creatures lurk within the Black Forest, and Nadre is one of them. He was brought up as a member of the Blackfang Clan, monk-like snake-kin who were trained from a young age to be the defenders of the Black Forest and their kinfolk within it. He and his brethren would hunt down and kill any interlopers into their territory, typically foolhardy artifact hunters, in order to keep their kin safe from persecution, and preserve the sanctity of their people's sacred artifacts.

For most of his life, Nadre was content with his role, keeping his family and their limbless kin safe from dangerous outsiders. However, the Black Forest has begun to face a new threat that Clan Blackfang are unprepared for: the dead have begun to rise within the Black Forest, including the bodies of scores of intruders that have trespassed over many years. None of the shamans or priests among their people could explain the phenomenon, and the crisis has resulted in many of Nadre's kin being injured or killed, despite their defenders' best efforts.

Determined to solve this problem, he has set out on his own (mostly) to either find the source of the sudden rise of the dead in his home, or to find some way of stopping it. He was entrusted with his clan's most sacred artifact for this mission, and has journeyed to Fuso to find out what can be done to stop the endless tide of the undead.

Skills: Nadre was trained as a killer from a young age, and can track and hunt down any warm-blooded animal with ease. An expert in the arts of stealth and subterfuge, Nadre prefers to hunt from the shadows and strike when his enemy least expects him. A skilled ambush-predator, Nadre has been known to set up intricate traps and diversions to confuse and terrify his foes before he silences them with his blades. Additionally, he is a master poisoner, able to devise toxins for a variety of purposes from both his own and his kin's venom, as well as toxic foliage and other animals.

Abilities: As one of the snake-kin, Nadre has many inborn abilities associated with snakes. Like all snakes, he is cold-blooded, making him difficult to track. His senses are different from that of a human, as he can not only hear, but also sense vibrations in the world around him, which gives him a preternatural sense of his surroundings. He typically communicates with his kinfolk through complex pheromone signals, which allow them to communicate in complete silence. He also can sense heat sources in his environment with the thermal sensory pits hidden in his nose, allowing him to track prey in complete darkness. Since his nose is given over to his thermal sense, Nadre can taste the air with his forked tongue, and can detect a variety of subtle traces and chemicals with it even hours after the source has dissipated. Nadre's fangs are functional and venomous, with a small doses able to induce crippling pain, and large doses capable of causing cardiac arrest.

Nadre has also trained himself to wield some of the spiritual magics of his people. With concentration, he can turn any of his bodily fluids to caustic poison, ensuring he is never without a source of poison for his blades. Given enough time and great effort, he can also summon his people's patron spirit, a gigantic snake capable of swallowing a man whole in an instant. However, the summoning is difficult and does not last long.

Equipment: Concealed in Nadre's robes are a variety of blades, darts, and needles, as which serve as delivery systems for the wide variety of different hand-made poisons Nadre also carries on him, concealed. He carries many poisons for different purposes, including deadly poison, paralytic poison, hallucinogenic poison, and poison that makes one lose control of their bowels, among several others. He also carries such tools as smoke bombs, rope, climbing pitons, and antidotes to some of his own poisons.

Nadre's most treasured possession is the artifact entrusted to him by his Clan for the duration of his mission: an ancient and deeply cursed blade. Nadre typically keeps it sheathed and tied to his back, but will wield it in dire emergencies. The sword is a two-handed, single-edged weapon called [b]Bloody Shadow: Malakir[/b], and its cursed blade inflicts a magical hex on whoever is cut by it. Wounds inflicted by Malakir do not clot, close, or heal unless by magic, making even a small cut from it a risk of exsanguination. However, the blade is hungry and curses even the wielder, as Malakir cannot be sheathed after being unsheathed unless it has tasted blood.

While not "equipment" per say, Nadre also typically carries tucked in his clothes several of his limbless "lesser kin," semi-intelligent venomous snakes. He can communicate with his diminutive partners using pheromones, and they are willing to assist him in his mission in exchange for food.

Faction: None, he only claims allegiance to his family in the Black Forest.[/hider]

[hider=Zera, Electromagus]
[center][img]https://imgur.com/IzImDpR.png[/img][/center]

[b][color=7DF9FF]Name:[/color][/b]  Zera Rallephoron

[b][color=7DF9FF]Age:[/color][/b]  29

[b][color=7DF9FF]Gender:[/color][/b]  Female

[b][color=7DF9FF]Appearance:[/color][/b]  Zera is an experienced and professional young woman, tall and with strong, long limbs that give her a somewhat masculine silhouette. She has dusky skin, expressive brown eyes, and dark hair in tight ringlets, though she usually keeps her hair tied back while she works. Zera typically wears her magineer's uniform, a red and blue utility jumper, soiled with oil stains and other workplace hazards as it is. She has a tattoo of a dragon coiled around her right forearm, though it's usually covered by her uniform or engineering equipment.

[b][color=7DF9FF]Personality:[/color][/b]  Somewhat mercurial and unpredictable, Zera can flit through a variety of moods very quickly. While one moment she can be deadly serious and focused on her work, the next she can be bubbly as she excitedly chatters about her current project or research. She's extremely passionate about whatever she chooses to throw herself into, though that passion sometimes expresses itself as days of tireless work in a manic state without food or rest. Her other emotions are just as wild and sometimes explosive, as those who have gotten on her bad side have found out. Truly in love with her work, Zera loves machines and is deeply curious about engineering principles she is not yet familiar with. Though she usually sates this curiosity by disassembling anything she doesn't understand, most of the time she can also put it back together. Despite her mood swings, Zera is very intelligent and knows is one of the best in her field, adept at thinking on her feet and coming up with unorthodox solutions to difficult problems.

[b][color=7DF9FF]Brief Backstory:[/color][/b]  Zera was born to two loving parents in one of the largest and most advanced settlements in the new world. While she grew up fascinated with tales of adventure outside the city, of artifact hunters and strange monsters, her parents forbade her from leaving the safety of their settlement, and once she came of age she signed up for the city's engineering corps. Zera showed amazing promise, rising steadily through the ranks, and eventually her aptitude for magic granted her training and a position as a magineer, responsible for overseeing the magitech within their settlement's infrastructure. A vital part of what keeps modern-day life civil (for those that live in the cities), magineers ensure that elemental boilers, levitating platforms, and other magitech conveniences continue to function smoothly.

After years of work as a respected magineer, Zera once again began to crave the excitement and adventure that she fantasized about as a child. Years of working in the bowels of cities repairing water mains and flux-power generators had left her longing for the freedom she was sure existed outside the cities. While she merely ruminated on these desires, too set in her ways to act on them, a mysterious discovery in the deepest and oldest foundations of her settlement turned her life on its head. She found an artifact, seemingly discarded in a sub-sub-sub-sub basement, and took it for her own. Seeing this as a sign that she should pack up and start a new life of adventure, Zera submitted a leave of absence to the engineer corps, kissed her mom and dad goodbye, and set off to join up with a band of freelance artifact hunters.

[b][color=7DF9FF]Skills:[/color][/b]  Zera is a highly skilled and experienced magical engineer. She has comprehensive knowledge of a variety of forms of magical technology, though this surely only scratches the surface of all that exists in the world. While her specialty is civil engineering, particularly electrical engineering, her talents and knowledge are applicable to a variety of different situations, as Zera is adept at improvising and substituting as needed. While her survival skills are admittedly limited, she is a fast learner and is no stranger to uncomfortable or even dangerous situations.

[b][color=7DF9FF]Abilities:[/color][/b]  As a magineer, Zera is of course capable of using magic. Most of her magic has to do with generating, containing, absorbing, or redirecting electricity, as her engineering specialty was working with the power generators and regulators of her settlement. However she has quite a few other tricks she's picked up in her time, such as having some minor control over metal, heat and fire, sound and thunder, and some light telekinetic abilities.

[b][color=7DF9FF]Equipment:[/color][/b]  Zera's primary piece of equipment is her magineer's apparatus, a standard-issue device given to each magineer in the engineer corps in her home settlement. Over the years, Zera has customized her apparatus to better suit her needs, and has nicknamed the equipment, "Maverick," and emblazoned it as such. Maverick consists of a copper-alloy gauntlet, and various tubing that connects it to an electro-magical energy tank strapped across Zera's back. The apparatus gives her extremely fine control over her electrical magic, somewhere she can store excess magic energy, and a wellspring she can tap into it as needed. Zera carries a variety of other engineering tools as well, such as spanners, torches, and so on, some of which having been directly incorporated into Maverick.

The artifact Zera found is known as [b]Chemister's Wand: Draconium[/b], and she has yet to entirely figure it out. It resembles a forked staff inscribed with strange runes and gemstones, and as far as Zera can tell it has something to do with elemental magic, or the transmutation thereof. The only function Zera has managed to reliably activate allows Draconium to change one form of elemental magic into another, but its trasmutation only works on fire, ice, and electrical magic. Zera intuits that there are functions to this staff that she has not yet unlocked, but she has not had much time to work on it.

[b][color=7DF9FF]Faction:[/color][/b] Though a bonded and unionized member of her home settlement's engineer corps, Zera isn't part of any formal adventuring or artifact hunting organizations.
[/hider]