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P R O F I L E
HeightAverage, around 5'10" WeightLight, wiry, under 140lb Sex/GenderMale RaceDunmer AgeOld, at least 400 BirthsignThe Thief (+10 Agility, Speed, Luck) ClassCustom: Armiger
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C A P A B I L I T I E S
Attributes Strength - 40
Intelligence - 40
Willpower - 38 (Race -10, Item +8)
Agility - 50 (Sign +10)
Speed - 60 (Race + 10, Sign +10)
Endurance - 30 (Race -10)
Personality - 40
Luck - 60 (Sign +10) SkillsMajor:
Blade 35 (Race +10)
Light Armor 30 (Race +5)
Acrobatics 25
Alteration 25
Illusion 25
Sneak 25
Speechcraft 25
Minor:
Destruction 15 (Race +10)
Athletics 10 (Race +5)
Blunt 10 (Race +5)
Marksman 10 (Race +5)
Mysticism 10 (+5 Race)
Alchemy 5
Armorer 5
Block 5
Conjuration 5
Hand-to-Hand 5
Heavy Armor 5
Mercantile 5
Restoration 5
Security 5 SpellsJump, Alteration, Apprentice.
Sea Stride, Alteration, Apprentice.
Chameleon, Illusion, Novice.
Minor Invisibility, Illusion, Novice.
Burning Touch, Destruction, Novice.
Clairvoyance, Mysticism, Novice.
Summon Ancestor Guardian, Racial.
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I N V E N T O R YWeapons & ToolsOutfit/ArmorFull set of Light Chitin Armour.
Colourful Dunmeri Robes. ConsumablesTwo standard health potions.
A weak paralysis poison. ValuablesAmulet of Fortify Willpower (+8)
500 septims. MiscellaneousDunmeri Lute.
Sealed scroll case.
Woven prayer mat.
Incense Burner.
Jar of Greef, Dunmer Comberry Brandy.
Two Ceramic Drinking Cups.
Paper Lantern.
Poems and Teachings of Vivec.
Pair of golden earrings (50g each).
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A P P E A R A N C E
Velyn Virith is an elderly male Dunmer, well into his fifth century, and approaching the natural end of his people's span of years. Despite his venerable age he is not frail or decrepit, he stands tall and straight still, thin with age and hard living, but possessing wiry strength and cultivated grace to his movements. The way Velyn moves is like a dancer, with light quick steps, but he carries himself with all the confidence and surety of a warrior. When his face is hidden beneath his chitinous helm, he could easily pass for a mer less than half his age.
Velyn's face, however, shows the truth of his age. His sharp angular features are lined and wrinkled, crows feet radiate out from the corners of his narrow blood red eyes. His hair has long since turned from black to grey to now pure snow white that tumbles down the side of his face when not bound up in a topknot. His beard is likewise devoid of colour, pulled into a single knot, just peeping out from under the edges of it, one can see the much faded markings of a scarab tattoo, the ancient symbol of the Great House Redoran.
In his youth, Velyn would have been considered handsome, and he still retains a element of refined dignity in his appearance to this day. There is a touch of vanity about him still, something that can be seen in the golden jewellery than hangs from his pointed ears and the gilded amulet around his neck.
When not wearing the worn and but well cared for chitin armour that is hidden away in his travelling trunk, Velyn prefers to dress in the many hued and patterned fabrics of his homeland. He dresses like a scholar, wearing long robes, with high collars and wide sleeves conceal much of his body. If he were to remove these, one might note a few interesting markings present upon Velyn.
First would be the sheer number of scars the Dunmer possesses, many are old and faded from battles centuries past, but a few are still livid and fresh enough to have been acquired recently. Secondly, his right shoulder is heavily bandaged from some recent injury, though he does his best to hide it, the wound hinders the use of that arm and gives the old mer pain. Blood sometimes stains the bandaging at days end if he exerts himself too much. Finally, the entire left side of his body, from the base of the neck to the wrist and ankle, is covering a tattoo of swirling wave patterns, much faded, probably centuries old, but undeniably there, imprinted into Velyn's skin in dark blue ink.
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M O T I V A T I O N & O U T L O O K
Velyn is a mer who has been through many trials and tribulations in his long life, trials that have had him question his faith and own decisions. As Lord Vivec once cautioned the Hortator Saint Nerevar, beware the wrong walking path. Velyn's path has been one of struggle, soaked in blood, beset with Violence. But it is only through Violence that one might reach Heaven. And so Velyn Virith, despite all his struggling, despite all his pain, is at peace.
He presents himself as being something of a philosopher and scholar. Something he is easily qualified to do, having spent centuries ruminating on the more obscure areas of Dunmer religion and philosophy along with questions such as the nature of divinity and the world itself.
But his frequent philosophical ruminations do not mean he is dour or dull, far from it in fact. Velyn is an eloquent conversationalist, a skilled orator, poet and musician. He enjoys the company of others, as well as being something of a performer and entertainer, and like all entertainers he enjoys a stiff drink shared with good company. At times like these his wry sense of humour becomes increasingly apparent, as well as a somewhat rakish and flirtatious side to old mer.
He is always kind and courteous, warm to those he meets in his travels. But he is always travelling, there is no home that Velyn returns to, there are no family or love ones waiting for him. Despite the smile he shows to world, there is an incalcuable sadness within Velyn, earned through the loss of everything and everyone he ever cared about. It is a loss that he never really recovered from, although he has somehow rebuilt himself into a functional mer, there is a hole in him, one that can only be filled by the desperate and foolish hope that he still to this day chases.
Ultimately, it is that mad hope, tempered by great loss and great suffering that lies at the core of Velyn Virith. There is a sharpness and hardness to him, wrapped under the layers of scholar, poet, musician. Like the blade he hides wrapped in his prayer mat, he keeps that part of him well sheathed. But it is always there. Velyn is killer, an ideological murderer, trained in both theory and terror, for according to the Codes of Mephala, there is no difference.
He does all this, walking the path of struggle and suffering, chasing a faint and distant hope, a letter written in uncertainty, in the hope that his pain, that all pain in fact, might have been worthwhile in the creation of something better.
For the ending of the words is ALMSIVI.
And the worlding of the words is AMARANTH.
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B A C K G R O U N D
Velyn took passage on the Arslan's fortune in Anvil as a paying passenger. He claims that he has been travelling throughout Cyrodil in order to acquire some rare texts and to study at some of the great libraries of the Province. The bundle of books and scrolls he carries with his luggage seems evidence enough for that claim.
Despite his general loquaciousness, Velyn Virith does not talk about the specifics of his past that much. But there are some things that can be gleaned about old mer's past, various signs and tells of his life that cannot be disguised or obscured. He speaks Dunmeris as his native tongue, his Imperial Common is good, but he still has a distinctive Morrowind accent. As well as that, there is the slight rasp to his voice that many Dunmer of Vvardenfell have, acquired through the scarring of the throat and lungs from a life lived amongst the ashlands that spread outward from Red Mountain.
The faded tattoo of the scarab under his beard, and the way that he carries himself, upright and dignified, says that he is, or at least was a member of a noble house. The scarab is a symbol of the Great House of Redoran, the great martial house of northwest Morrowind.
Putting all of this together, it would be safe to assume that Velyn Virith, or to give him his full name, Serjo Redoran Velyn Virith, was born in the middle of the Third Era on the Isle of VVardenfell to a noble clan of the Great House of Redoran.
How exactly a noble scion of a Great House ended up wandering the other edge of the known world as a travelling scholar, poet come minstrel, is difficult to guess. But Morrowind has been a province that has experienced great hardship and trouble over the years between Velyn's birth and the present day. The Oblivion Crisis, the Fall of Baar Dau, the Eruption of Red Mountain, the Argonian Invasion. There are many reasons that might make someone choose to leave their homeland.
But another reason could be gleaned, if one knew about those other tattoos, hidden beneath his robes, those swirling waves of blue ink. It has been many years since Velyn received them, and for many their meaning may be lost to time. But there are still plenty of Dunmer who would remember what those tattoos mark Velyn as.
A Buoyant Armiger. A soldier of the Tribunal Temple, exclusively dedicated to and answering to Lord Vivec, one of the False Triunes. The Armigers patterned themselves on Vivec's heroic spirit of exploration and adventure, and sought to emulate his mastery of the varied arts of personal combat, chivalric courtesy, and subtle verse.
Poet, Warrior, Priest. Three things Velyn still acts like to this day.
The Armigers largely disappeared from the histories of Tamriel after the events of Red Year and the Argonian Invasion, but some must have survived those terrible and bloody years. But still, when the New Temple emerged triumphant from the rubble of Morrowind, they proclaimed Vivec was a false god. Any who still worshipped at His alter would find themselves branded apostates and exiled.
It would be enough to break someone. Exile, for continuing to believe what you had dedicated your life to, after fighting for decades to help and protect your fellow countrymer in a terrible bloody war? Unless you had some mad and foolish hope, that your Lord was not really gone, that your belief was not mistaken, that your suffering still might mean something.
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R E L A T I O N S H I P S & O P I N I O N STBC
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M I S C E L L A N E O U S
Velyn's sword, The Blade of Fiery Light, is an ancestral Dunmer blade, single edged and slightly curved, the quicksilver and moonstone folded into the blade creating a series of bands or waves of dark light through the metal. Designed to be held in one or two hands, its hilt of gilded bonemold is inscribed with Daedric Runes, spelling out some Dunmeris enchantment, that dully glows upon the antique weapon.
The golden amulet about Velyn's neck that fortifies his Willpower is likewise an Ancestral Dunmer artifact, the sealed amulet contains a fragment of ash from the Ancestal tomb of Velyn's clan back in Morrowind. It is a symbol of his faith and the enduring nature of Dunmer beliefs in the face of hardship. |
