Eisenhorn

Dragon Age: Peace Torn Asunder

Name: Alexander Atreides

Age: 44

Sex: Male

Race: Human

Class: Mage

Title: Taskmage

Magical Abilities: Having spent his entire life training and fighting with magic, Atreides has settled into using two very specific schools of magic.

Entropy: From clouding and confusing the minds of enemies, to sapping the very strength from targeted enemies and all around him, to even bringing down swirling vortex's of enthropic magic to leave groups of enemies disabled and vulnerable, Atreides has long experience and training with Entropic magic, having turned an art based out of the most chaotic portion of the Fade, into something not only reliable, but rather potent in the face of enemies that are resilient to more direct methods of assault.

Force: Sometimes subtly and disabling enemies just doesn't cut it, or his allies are in no position to take advantage of the gaps that he has created in the enemies. In these cases, Atreides turns to a school of magic that utilizes a brutally simple property. Gravity. Amplifying the force of gravity in an area to the point of being like the Fist of the Maker, scattering and forcing foes together, and even, with great focus, redirect the gravity in an area to force enemies to a snails pace, leaving them open to further harassment or a mighty crushing blow delivered courtesy of gravity.

Personality: Alexander Atreides, the Taskmage, values cunning and creativity first and foremost. While intelligent and rather well grounded for a mage, the man believes that all the knowledge in the world is useless without being able to come up with inventive and practical ways of applying such things. The man has some serious authority issues, not taking well to anyone he doesn't respect, let alone someone he has the energy and dedication to hate, trying to tell him what to do. He has been known to abuse his magical gifts to exact revenge on those he does not approve of, to the point of borderline sedition and treason. Only borderline, though. Beyond his mile wide vengeance streak and the stubbornness to carry it out, Alex is fairly approacheable, albeit he will be rather plain in his speaking which might come across as rude or insulting. But he is just honest in his opinion, and if he doesn't like someone, they WILL know it.

History: Alex was borne to a pair of Apostates, one arcane, the other religious. His father had never been handed over to the Circles of his time and refused to bow to them, and his mother had been driven out after her rather choice words and repeated stand offs aimed at the village Chantry. Being a boy on the run taught the lad right quick that all the magic in the world can't replace good old fashioned cunning and ingenuity. Since he didn't have the formal training of a mage guild, he never broadly branched across various schools before settling on one. Instead, his father focused on, at a young age, teaching the boy Entropy magic, for reason that by itself, the school of magic was not the most lethal of branches, more focused on general disabling and nullification of potential threats. Growing up with his parents he saw the world, and many of its glories, secrets, and horrors in between the dull and dreary places they had to stop at on occasion.

Once he was old enough, Alexander bid farewell to both his parents and went his own way to walk the world, alone. From the seat of empires most grand to the dingiest and dirtiest pub in some run down border town, Atreides has seen many, many places in the world as he walked and continued to openly practice his magic. He made a name for himself taking various jobs and sorting them out, often times bloodless, and in many places the title of Taskmage was known to the town, due to the intervention and aid from Atreides. When the war started, Atreides was in one of the first cities hit by the Tevinter and their daemons. He had been studying Force magic, a Kirkwall favorite, alongside his advancing and inventive work in Entropy, at the time and found himself blasting away daemons with sheer waves of force while obscuring and dampening the strength of enemy forces. The city fell, in due time, and Atreides the Taskmage has been fighting in the war ever since, by virtue of having nowhere else to run to, and if the Tevinter took over, he was not fooled by the idea of mages ruling. Their mages would rule, not the others he worked alongside and himself. Survival drove the man to stand against the Tevinter and their daemons, and he still stands now when the call went out for a new force to be assembled.

Appearance:


Other: Alexander's staff is an heirloom, according to his father, and seems to grow with the man in power and experience rather than get left behind in power.

Project Freelancer

Penn was not too far off from the briefing room when the announcement came over the speakers, F.I.L.S.S calling the top ranked members of this merry group of soldiers off to some brief. The group was far larger than the normal ones sent out, it seemed from previous call outs and chatter from lower ranked soldiers. Considering he was not occupied of otherwise indisposed at that particular moment, he was able to wander over to the indicated room in rather short time, in his armor as he found a place to sit down, while nowhere specific or near any spots that might hold some significant meaning for one reason or another, and set his helmet down on the table. He leaned back in the chair a fair bit, using the reclined position to relax while waiting for the other members he hadn't seen for some time to arrive. His arms were crossed across his chest, as well as he could over the increased bulk his chest piece had at any rate, and began playing the waiting game, wondering who would actually come walking in after him for the brief.

Fire Emblem: Light's End

I'll be posting as soon as Dedonus does, since that is kind of how the rotation has fallen in.

Fantasy's Shattering

Atreides listened with surprising patience as the cursed soldier worked his way through his fractured mind and manner of speech, eventually giving forth the name of Gilligan. Well, that was better than Cursed one, although that would no doubt suffice in a pinch. The being proceeded to mention accompanying Sable and himself, and the matter was not up for debate. Well, that meant they had an undead and near indistructeable, from the showing he gave with the dragon, soldier following them around that could not speak very well. This would make visits to town far more entertaining, he thought with a mental sigh. Well, that did mean things would be easier in sheer violence situations, although why the cursed one insisted on the matter was a mystery to the Taskmage. Depending on how fractured the being was, Gilligan might very well see the past in them and be clinging to it. Or he was very perfectly all there and was putting on a show. He couldn't confirm that either way right now, and for now, it wasn't worth the pain.

"Well, Sir Gilligan, I won't tell you where to go or who to go with, so by all means, let's get the ladies and get moving."

Atreides turned towards Sable, seeing she already had a little gang of her own and snickered, a sound that she would be familiar with as a prelude to some sort of mockery or ribbing that was about to drop. Approaching the woman, whether cursed soldier was in tow or not, he crossed his arms with a sardonic smirk on his face.

"Look at you Meat, got yourself a little girl's night out club and everything already. No more babysitting for me, it seems. On a serious note, its late, we need to find someplace to put up for the night. Town sound good?"

Project Freelancer

It had been a long four days, Agent Pennsylvania decided, a long as hell four days. He had gotten pulled, hard, from the training sim for, and he was quoting the brass on this one, 'Additional Advanced Advisement'. In other words, since he had ranked as high as he did on the scoreboard, he had been pulled for additional briefing, training, explanations, and a whole mess of things that had utterly and completely absorbed any free time he had, even eating had been done on the fly between briefs and training sessions. It was all very clear in his head how the last four days had progressed before the brass finally had let him walk off, having finished their training regiment to the satisfaction of whomever had dictated, and was no doubt supervising, the whole thing. Whoever it was had not deemed it necessary for Penn to know the why of the training, only the material within the training was valid information for him to know.

First day had been psych evaluations, which Penn had expected to see happen. Going full suicidal for a training sim might invite that kind of scrutiny. The questions and research did not go along as the Agent had predicted they would, seeming more concerned about various other scenarios and possible mental instabilities BESIDES the apparent tendencies towards critical existence failures. Apparently whatever he had going for him appealed to the brass, since after that they green lit him for the next three days of high intensity, high yield training. Day one had ended with being cleared by the various medical authorities, and day two expectations and briefings before being sent to a holding unit rather than his own quarters. Probably didn't appreciate him debugging the room.

Day two was physical and mental stress tests, in both simulated and real space. Maximum carrying capacities, lift limits, top speed, resilience to mental and physical fatigue, the sims allowed for warped time perception, getting far more done in a single day than would normally be possible. It was strenuous and went to the very limits of his abilities, which was to be expected from stress testing, really. Several of the 'no win' scenarios irked him, because they had run along the same vein as the final simulation that placed him at the top of the ratings board that others had placed lower on. So it was probably insuring that there had not been a fluke in the training, something unusual that had gotten him through where he shouldn't have. There wasn't, but it was a rare case of not being able to blame the brass for double checking their assets.

Day three and day four consisted of advanced technical instruction in ordinance class weapons that he had, in some cases, never even heard of, let alone ever dreamed of getting his hands on. Intelligence briefs on various environments and locations that he had not personally operated in, but had the potential to be deployed to. It was the good stuff that made Penn decide it had not been a waste of his time, even if the isolation aspect of it had not been terribly interesting or welcome to deal with. But it had finished by the evening of the fourth day of his isolation, and he was cleared to go resume normal duties and stand by for further assignment and mission tasking. Penn had quietly retired for the time being, passing out for however long he had, getting proper rest to digest the past few days events more fully and make his conclusions.

Eventually the doors to his quarters opened again, and out came Pennsylvania again, fully armored with his helmet tucked under his arm. He wasn't hungry, so for now, he wandered the hallways and spaces without a destination in mind, waiting for the call that he had a sneaking suspicion was not far away now. But he wasn't planning to run into anyone, though he would probably recognize them if he crossed paths with them, so it was not too much of a concern if he did. For now, though, he reckoned it was a good idea to figure out what was going to happen in the short term, especially after his rather unusual past couple of days.

Dragon Age: Peace Torn Asunder

Hmm, seems like something I'm down with. Have my interest.

Fantasy's Shattering

Once the cursed one managed to get out that he would not attack, Atreides let his hand drop from his sword hilt. He knew the truth of things, then, and would not remain any more hostile to him than he was normally to everyone. But he kept his tone in check as the being stuttered and forced the truth of its words out between whatever the curse attempted to wring them into, a considerable effort no doubt. As it finished speaking, he responded in kind, returning his hands to the pockets of his coat as he did so.

"They don't swear fealty to me, soldier, though if this turns out to be one big band of people running around, I will at least try to talk sense into them before they run into bloody peril every five minutes. The red lady? Folks call her Crimson Streak, Sable to others, she's handy with the knives, enough so not to need magic to compensate. You got a name, or shall it remain cursed one or soldier?"

Atreides had pretty much dismissed the other people running around, being problematic and talking FAR too much, too fast, and too loud for his own tastes. Sable eventually wandered over, and he glanced her way briefly before returning his gaze to the cursed soldier and await his response, speaking an aside to Sable as he did so.

"Lot louder than planned, Meat. Got any suggestions for further planning? Can bet your arse at least one of that lot a raging murder desire for me now. Almost always happens."

Darkness was falling fast, the sun setting over the land, and it wouldn't be too long before folks would have to turn in at the town's local inn. Atreides wouldn't mind a good night's rest, though some preparations would be necessary prior to falling asleep of course. Never trust his surroundings to be safe got him a good ways.

Fantasy's Shattering

Atreides moved at the same time as the cursed soldier did, the Dragon opting to pursue the slower, hardier, target out of the two. Lightning arcing along his left arm, he blasted additional blows against the beast's hide, splitting scales away now from the repeated attacks and starting to really get under the thing's skin, no pun intended. Of course, as planned, Sable was already up and moving, and the dragon started aiming for the skies. Nope, Atreides decided, not that easy. Changing up his magic, he started lobbing unstable looking stones from the ground, that shattered before impact, shredding wing fabric on one side as Sable went about taking the other wing apart. Not much else he was going to do from this range at the moment, not that he didn't want hitting Sable. She was in a lot of splash range, as it were.

But down the beast came, Sable driving it into the dirt from on high. He reckoned she would be alright, all things considered, and he did indeed check briefly to ensure that, after the crash landing she was alright, he turned to address the most important thing in mind at the moment. The cursed soldier, the dead man still moving about under his own power. Well, whether it was his own or not was not necessarily the point right now. But he approached the man, for lack of better terms, hand resting on his sword just in case and spoke again to the deadman, although considering the previous silence, he was not sure what to expect out of the man. He remained frank and to the point still, he couldn't know how this soldier was going to act.

"Good work, for working under a curse like that. So, biggest question I have out of all the ones I could ask is this. You going to remain friendly, or are we going to have to disagree after bringing that thing down?"

Fire Emblem: Light's End

<Snipped quote by Jerod>
Marius: "You better keep in mind that you are not a 'hero' yet." ;)

@Dedonus

Jerod grins: "Aye, th' operative word bein' yet, ye'll see, savvy?"

Fire Emblem: Light's End

<Snipped quote by Jerod>
Marius: "Fine. If you want me to be all the way at level 20 while the rest of you are still in the single digits, don't come crying to me when things get to difficult."

@Dedonus

Jerod: "Single digits 'ero beats a double digits cavalier, 'orseman, jus' keep tha' in mind."