[CHAR] The Light In the Darkness

[HowlsOfWinter]

Lillith Evergreen

Lillith Evergreen

The Summoner

Race: Human
^{______________}
Age: 23 years
^{______________}
Height: 5'8ft
^{______________}

Abilities:

↳ Summoning - The ability to summon familiars that the user has formed a summoning contract with in the past. Well-versed summoners are able to summon without the restrictions of a contract, but doing so may backfire. Summoning a creature with much greater power is more difficult to control and may result in their death.

↳ Empowerment - Most summoners have the ability to draw power from a summoned familiar, thereby increasing the user's capabilities. Depending on the familiar being summoned, the user may gain enhanced strength, durability, stamina, and heightened senses. There must be a contract formed beforehand.

Background:

Over the years, Lillith had spent a majority of her time in the outskirts of a small village by the border, devoting her time to studying animals in the forest rather than frolicking with humans in town. She mostly kept to herself. She had a speech problem, which made it difficult for her to speak without stuttering. Moreover, there was a popular tale in the village about a summoner who once took control of a dragon and used it to wreak havoc upon Omicria, and this irrational fear of theirs further led to her becoming an outcast.

She found comfort in her bestial companions, but her interactions with wildlife only proved to worsen her speech defect. She speaks in broken sentences and stutters at the beginning of every word, and her undue awareness of it usually shuts her up in an instant. Human interaction leaves her flustered, and she would often rather avoid embarrassment by keeping her silence.

[WolfredWolf]

Amontillado

Name: Amontillado (Monty)

Race: Human

Age: 24 is his best guess

Height: 6' 1"

Appearance: Black hair kept in a short ponytail and bright blue eyes. His skin is somewhat pale. He's on the thin side, but he's fit and his arms are reasonably muscled from plenty of digging and lifting.

Backstory: Where he comes from, orphans are not given to loving families, but instead sent to be workers or apprentices to typically difficult or undesirable roles. Amontillado had the luck, or lack thereof, to wind up at the region's largest, busiest cemetery and apprenticed to a mortician. 

He learned the arts of alchemy and anatomy, at the cost of limited interaction with living people; digging graves at night, and studying and practicing by day. In his very limited free time, he steadily formed a bond with the crows and ravens that gathered to scavenge the leftovers.

Eventually he took over his master's role as head mortician by being the one to embalm and bury the man. There was no funeral, just as he knew his own end would be. There one day, on a slab the next. He didn't often think of other possibilities. 

He thought he'd be spending the rest of his life in that morgue, likely being sent an apprentice of his own soon… until the cultists came. He'd assumed that the hooded figures out digging amongst the headstones were grave robbers. Until he was knocked out from behind and woke later lying in a circle alone, covered in and surrounded by symbols, with the building he'd previously called his home burning to the ground and every single grave open and empty. Suddenly, he began to realistically consider a different career. The casualties in the nearby town as well as the corpses that had walked that night would be far too much work for one man to handle.

[Aristocles]

Here's my first of two characters. Note that two isn't required, but two mains are the max per person to keep it from getting confusing.

Name: Cyprian of Naissos

Race: Human

Age: 29

Appearance: (see below)

Backstory: Born a peasant, Cyprian joined the army of a petty Omicrian lord and rose through the ranks of his army before being laid off after cutbacks. He traveled to a monastery and was hired as a guard. He considered joining a the monks there, but after gaining access to their library, he learned about the history of Omicria and its tragic fall, as well as hints about where the palace of Anthedon was located. The books in the monastery also contained some magical spells, and he has learned some from them, along with some instruction from the abbott, who was a mage himself. Cyprian left the monastery in search of the key to the palace, along with other adventurers who could help him to find it.

Cyprian

Here's my second character.

Name: Alyssa

Age: 25

Appearance: (See Below)

Backstory: As with all orc tribes, the females are expected to follow certain roles, same as most other species. Alyssa's tribe, the White Claws, allowed their females to act as hunters and trackers alongside the males, at least until marriage. By then, Alyssa would have been expected to drop hunting in favor of tending to the needs of hearth and children. It wasn't an arrangement she was at all upset about until she learned that her parents and her chief had arranged for her to marry a warrior who already have four wives. As polygamy isn't looked down on by the orcs- and is in fact encourged for the strongest males when it comes to collecting wives- this was seen as normal. Alyssa ran away the night before her wedding, not wanting to be locked in a polygamous marriage, or at last, not as the fifth wife in an already-large household.

Alyssa

[Milkman]

Name: Ash Greymane
Gender: Male
Age: 19
Race: human

Appearance: Ash has a rather unremarkable physique. His muscle tone is almost non-existent and he’s of rather average height. His brown reddish hair is rather wild and unkept. For those with a sharp eye it is clear that he just cuts it himself when it gets too long. His skin tone is rather tanned.

Probably the most remarkable features are Ash’s clothes. His simple pants look like they are at least several sizes too big and are held around his body with a leather belt that is easy to open up. He tends to wear simple peasant shirts and is mostly seen traveling with a bag of many spare clothes.

Around Ash’s neck there is a leather strap withs holds the fang of a wolf.

Backstory:
Ash was once a member of a nomadic tribe from far beyond the borders of what once was the great kingdom of Omicria. Connecting with your spirit guide was of great importance within the culture and considered a vital step towards adulthood. As a rite of passage all members of the tribe had to journey on their own for a month into the wilds in order to find and connect with their spirit guide when they became 15 winters old. During their journey, the tribe members had to rely on the skills they were taught and connect with their spirit guide in order to gain the wisdom and courage to survive the harsh conditions. Not everyone that undertook their journey returned home.

Just like all the other tribe members Ash ventured into the wilds on his 15th winter. The conditions were freezing and food and shelter hard to come by. Conditions deteriorated by the 2nd week as the worst snowstorm in a decade hit the area. As the young man’s body started to give in to hunger and the freezing conditions Ash could hear the wolf's howl in the distance. At that moment he was sure that he would be one of the people that never returned from their journey.

As his mind went black he suddenly had a vision. It was as if his spirit had left his body and was now flying close above the ground in the woods at a rapid pace. Forward, left, right around the tree. Then momentarily waiting behind the bushes before continuing. And then there was this smell. Something that the young man had never smelled before and yet he recognized it. It was the smell of deer. His mind was following the scent of the forest creature. As his spirit journeyed on, he could see the deer. Slowly Ash closed in on the animal and then he leaped.

Suddenly the young man woke up. The last thing he remembered was his dream about chasing the deer. And then he tasted it. The taste of blood in his mouth. His hunger was gone too. As Ash looked around he saw the carcass of a deer. It looked as if it was eaten by a predator. Did he do it? Did Ash somehow hunted it down with his bare hands and ate it raw? As the young man looked closer he saw a fang sticking out of the carcass, a fang of a wolf. Ash had found his spirit guide, the totem of the wolf.

As the month passed by Ash returned to the camp of his tribe only to be met with an eerie silence. What should have been a place full of life and fires was now a place of silence and death. Only the vultures circling above occasionally disturbed the silence with an occasional skreek. The camp had been raided and his tribe had been massacred. All the winter supplies had been taken and what was left was nothing more than burned out tents and rotting corpses. There was nothing to return to for Ash.

And then it happened, a vision. It was as if ash was high in the clouds looking down on a wandering lone wolf. As he followed the creature different landscapes passed until it stopped before the largest door he had ever seen. A building so humongous and big towered before him. At that moment Ash knew that his journey wasn’t over but just beginning.

Powers:

The shamans tell that everybody has spirit guides but not everyone shares a strong connection between them. Many people live their entire lives without noticing the signs and opening up for connecting with them. The shamans also say that spirit guides come in many forms. Some are ancestors that have deceased many generations ago while others are celestial beings from beyond time and space. For Ash his spirit guide is the wolf. A predator that the shamans associate with freedom, loyalty towards friends and family, perseverance and survival.

Spirit guidance: The guidance of the spirits manifest themselves through visions, dreams and signs. The spirit guides often show things, imagery or share experiences but never provide clear answers. The role of the guide is not to say what to do but to help those who they guide to find their own path.

Feral senses: Ash’s senses are highly developed. Even in his human form his senses are vastly superior to regular humans. He can distinguish the different smells of individual creatures from a mile away and his hearing and sight is far more accurate than that of a regular human.

Shapeshifting: Ash can borrow the power of his spirit guide and transform into a large bipedal wolf creature with razor sharp claws and teeth. In this form Ash’s is much stronger, faster and more agile than a regular human. However as this is borrowed power, Ash cannot maintain it for long periods of time not to mention that his spirit guide must agree to grant Ash this power. If his spirit guide believes Ash's intentions are wrong or the situation does not warrant the use of this power, Ash is not allowed to tap into it.

[Shadow Dragon]

Name:Taranis Asmodeus

Race:Human

Age:20

Backstory:Taranis was born with storm power crackling in his veins. His hair constantly stands on end from the magic building up inside him. He travels the land, bringing rain to the towns he visits, to help them grow food and have fresh, clean water. He does his best to keep his temper under control, as it has a..... explosive effect on the air around him. He's found he's immune to electrical attacks, as he's gotten hit by lightning once or twice. It's didn't hurt as much as it should have, being over 300 million volts of electricity. Just knocked him off his feet, instead of cooking him alive. He walked away, his clothes burnt, hair on end. But otherwise fine. He's looking for others like him, lost and wandering souls, that he can assist and set back on a better path.

Appearance:

Taranis Asmodeus

[nasty]

Minna!

Concept: A dryad who holds cycles and nature dear to her heart. She has folk magic-esque powers and a deep understanding of the natural world, but falls short when it comes to man-made things.

The idea of combat is alien to her. As an extension from this, so is war, violence for power, and spite. Humanity as a whole can be largely perplexing in the ways it differs from nature, and so humans can be tricky as an extension.

Name: Minna
Race: Dryad
Age: ???
Appearance: short, slender, and relaxed, but a little awkward of movement. Deep green eyes, unbrushed nut brown hair, and freckles. She takes on a near child-like appearance, complete with puffy cheeks, a snub nose, and dirt-smudged skin. She wears a mid-length dress made of broad leaves and bark that never seems to get snagged.

History:
Minna has spent most of her life around the palace area.
Sometimes she ventured outside the region to explore. Sometimes is a lot when you’re as timeless as she. You should ask her to tell a story sometime.
Observing nature gives one a great deal of time to ponder.
Maybe there’s more to come?

Drive: to Appreciate
Belief: “It matters not what you do, but why you do it.”
Instinct: “Always consider why something is done”

Abilities:
-Dryadic folk-magic.
o Think along the lines of: shambles made of cord, animal bones, and rocks. Burning bones. A tree rotting away in the damp undergrowth used as a focus for a sympathetic hex. A circle of mushrooms that you always seem to find impossible to walk into.
o Spell effects range from things like accelerated rotting to nature-based divination. The biggest rule here is that everything is long-form; there’s no “finger snap for a fireball” or “chant for 6 seconds for a wall of thorns” here. Think elaborate rituals, practiced ways of hanging fiber cord, ceremonial burns of dead wood, otherworldly visions, tuned wind chimes, the law of sympathy, and similar things.

-Gardening/Plant lore
o Needs no elaboration. She knows a lot about plants.

-Understanding.
oThe ability to wrap her mind around complex ideas comes naturally to her. This is because she has a fairly comprehensive and intuitive grasp of nature and natural law, and new concepts are simply extensions of that. This doesn’t mean she’s a supercalculator, she’s just predisposed to conceptual thinking.