Fetzen

The Blighted Kingdom

[...]
@Fetzen

I’d like to discuss your sheets further with each of you; expect PM’s tomorrow. I’m currently travelling but won’t be getting into anything heavy this evening as it’s a fairly long journey.

@Roman

I hope it's not too bad.

The Blighted Kingdom

Now that I've slept I noticed that I've messed a few smaller things up yesterday. I fixed the horizontal lines and a few typos. Also I've replaced Transhumanism and The Great Experiment with other items. There was a small mixup when I've assembled the different drafts to the final sheet yesterday.

The Blighted Kingdom

Sooo... this is my application in its initial state:

Týfurkh Gandjar

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^{"Why keep people asking if those gems are taken from victims of the blight? We're no crazy people!"}

^{T Ý F U R K H G A N D J A R ♦ 28 ♦ M A L E ♦ N E U T R A L}

Ω O R I G I N S:

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If you look at the Barbed Church, what do you see ? An incredibly impressive collection of self-proclaimed believers. Now I want to preempt clearly that I find nothing wrong with what the church believes in -- on the contrary I say that postulating theories about what is yet to be discovered is everybody's human right. The problem lies in the stark contrast between the word 'believe' and what the church actually does.

The user of the aforementioned term acknowledges the fact that he is convinced of something, but also is convinced by his current inability to prove it and thus that he still could be wrong. Yet the church's leadership burdens its subordinates with duties of such severity as if they had already found proof for not only the magick well but also something else so terrible that the world needs to decend into self-inflicted pain right away. Yet none of us has yet seen this proof, so I, we, see no other choice but to regard the church as an organization of such great inner conflict that it's an almost unbearable waste of resources, especially now.

Yet we never have done any harm to them, at least not actively. We haven't even done so much as to buy a stack of parchments, write our statements down and spread them throughout the villages as this certainly would have eliminated what little security we've had. It's not like the First Thorn would have stepped onto a rostrum and shouted 'Slay those heretics!', but experience tells that in every organization sufficiently large enough there occur extremes. Groups of individuals independently of each other started a silent war against our debating societies, rushing into their places and given their members a beating. The fact that these 'conquests' gave them more insight into our world of thought didn't make things better, but only helped push them to more violent measures. Sadly though ultimately some of ours had to pay the ultimate price for this.

But all of this has happened over a century ago. The terror, though never officially called for, helped greatly in forging us together. It can be considered an irony that if it hadn't been for the Barbed Church we maybe wouldn't be able to enjoy so much calmness around us today. The freezing temperatures and high altitude of the northeastern mountains do a great job at keeping annoying visitors off, allowing us to do whatever research we want as long as it is not too expensive. It's not like the people of Mornfell would welcome us any more openly than any others or pay especially well, but even they appreciate it if some newly developed piece of magick device can make some part of their ancient city a little more reliable.

The church and its members have forgotten us, but we have not forgotten them. We can roam freely in the world again as long as we keep our mouths shut and don't even think about retaliation for past generations. We are only two hundred or so, but we believe the world could need us now more than anywhen else in history. If the story about the magick well the church spreads is true, the stone blight is an issue can be solved by magical engineering more than by the sword. The council has sent me to answer Jocun's call. Let's just hope that this won't turn into an order to get along with a bunch of idiots -- even though this would still be preferrable to a single academic who can identify where I belong to and not live with it.

Ω A B I L I T I E S / S K I L L S:

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//ABILITIES:

◼ AN ADDICT'S RESISTANCE | By looking at his very impressively tall, well-fed and rather broad-shouldered frame one could think that he must be someone who can take quite a beating. However those people don't realize that the sense of pain and exhaustion is invariant to one's constitution. If it hurts, it hurts. And if it hurts too much it hurts too much. Now there are two ways to remedy this: Years of hard training and experience, or, if you don't have the time, are just too lazy or are actually convinced of the superiority of your idea -- and he certainly is... -- drugs. No, not that half-assed stuff you can get in taverns or so, but something of his people's design. Others who aren't prepared shouldn't use it, but for him the greatest danger lies in not noticing when to stop for good. It allows him to run harder and longer, lift and carry greater weight and bear more pain than the usual individual, but it can't take away the increased negative effects afterwards.

◼ MY SPELL IS MY BLOOD | One of the fundamental, but unwritten laws of physics is that effects always come in pairs of opposites. Just like every force is answered by an equally large force in the opposite direction, the process of converting magick into health can be inversed. Fortunately enough his way of doing it is not some wicked ritual that involves spilling his own blood in the hope of some greater being descending upon him and doing things, but again the outcome of research. He can become a powerful source of magick that exceeds what a mage can usually achieve at the expense of his own, physical well-being. After all it might be better to have to rest for a day than having to be buried because that damn fireball hasn't been big enough.

//SKILLS:

◼ TINKERING | While he has not specifically been trained for that, his very generalized knowledge of magick can still be considered very useful to try and get rid of a broad array of possible obstacles before they can do harm. This includes, but is not limited to magic barriers, traps (that is... if detected beforehand) and curses. Due to the near limitless possibilities of how to implement those things precisely a careful analysis usually is required before messing around with them. Definitely too long for a combat situation.

◼ LET ME THROUGH, I'M AN ELECTRICIAN! | Dumping magick into strength or speed is something that can be deemed more beneficial in non-combat situations when there's a particularly large rock to move or a wall to breach since he frankly doesn't know how to behave in a melee situation (see weaknesses). However he definitely knows how to convert raw magick into something that can hurt. The major problem probably is that freshly fried flesh doesn't smell particularly good.

//LIMITATIONS:

◼ FUNDAMENTAL RESEARCH | The kind of study he has subjected himself to is not exactly what is taught at ordinary academies. His knowledge focuses very much on the basics of magick, not so much on the implementation of a practical use. So while he clearly is very good at what he can and could give you a full blown, mathematically enriched lecture on magick, he's quite bad at everything else. He can't deviate much to the left or right from his repertoire of spells for his knowledge in the upper levels is not as broad as that of other mages.

//WEAKNESSES:

◼ I HAVE TO HOLD THIS END, RIGHT ? | Well... Týfurkh's knowledge of swords is sufficient enough to prevent that question being asked, but it doesn't go far beyond that. If you're a mere 28 years old and have been as packed with the kind of knowledge as he has, then there is simply not enough time for that stuff as well. The same applies to pretty much all other kinds of weapons whose usage isn't a trivial affair and in offense as well as in defense.

◼ IF THEY ONLY KNEW... | There's a word that says there's nothing humans are more afraid of as the unknown. Being unknown or at least unusual probably applies very well to him and his skills, so using them in the public could call in more trouble than others would do, depending on the situation. It's not as if his outer appearance with that kind of armor paired with his very impressive height wouldn't already make people turn their eyes...

Ω N O T E S:

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None.

The Blighted Kingdom

Finished the backstory / history of my character, but now I'm trying hard to get my thoughts about his abilities written down. I hope to get the sheet done within the next hours still though.

The Blighted Kingdom

Having seen that magick is not outside of the range of the possible and seeing the party's different talents and skills so far I think that some kind of a magick-using support role in the second line could be a valuable addition that doesn't collide with anyone else's activities. I still have to flesh out the details, but what do you think of the basic idea ?

Truly a sad existence.

Welcome to the guild!

If you need any help feel free to ask and/or contact me directly. I think I've already private-message'd you having seen your interest check :)

Into The Dark: Tales of Maroleth

Congrats to myself. I have successfully managed to test the 'self-mentions in posts are ingored by the system'-feature. Unfortunately the 'replace self-mentions by mentions of those players that should have been mentioned instead' feature seems not to be implemented. Sorry!

_{And now guess how that error came to be...}

I have the subtle feeling that I might have gotten at least one or two things wrong in my post. If that's the case please tell me!

Into The Dark: Tales of Maroleth

The sun was an enjoyable sight for it was the clear indication that they had left this largely unexplored subterranean mixture of dwarfish and dark elven infestation behind for good. The Skayleigh spent a lot of time on looking downwards, waiting for his eyes to do what any dwarven eye would have done long ago and adjust. The moment pain ceased to be the reward for looking into the distance, An-Hasst raised his senses and inspected the environment himself. A village. Inhabitans ? Humans. Or should one say... daredevils ?

While he had never participated much in the struggle on the Kaelic Isles himself, he still could recognize how terribly wrong the order of construction appeared to have gone here. Wouldn't have it been a much better idea to try and get a decent defensive ring completed first before upgrading improvised shelters to nice little houses ? Without a wall they'd have to try and shoot their bows from inside the houses and await any enemy there after he had broken through the gate. Or simply get slaughtered outside by virtually any projectile on any arbitrary trajectory. An-Hasst silently hoped that those people at least knew that there was this massive cave entrance nearby ?

He noticed how their most recent addition opted to seek cover behind him -- and in fact he started to support this move. The woman was horribly exposed and who knew how badly her reputation in this village was biased by either previous confrontation on the personal level or general vilification of her race. Her getting held up, probably caught and possibly even be killed would only help to give their own cause a boost downwards. So he started to move more slowly and barely enough to make his stance and position not appear odd. Sometimes being the largest member of the group could be quite advantageous. If only there was be more he could do to make her drow-ish appearance just vanish for a brief, decisive moment. The old 'we have captured this individual and would like to perform our investigations' trick wouldn't work on such short notice, would it ? At least he decided not to dare and try it single-handedly. If she'd decide to pull it off, he'd assist her though.

Maybe though this wouldn't even be necessary: Maybe Settionne would succed in wrapping this guard into so much of his disgusting verbal slime that the poor fellow would simply slither along the ground of arguments no matter what part of his mind or body he'd deploy to try and gain a foothold ? Time would tell in a few moments, and so long he'd have to try and move this rog captain's halberd into a less prominent position. What if they'd recognize what kind of species it originated from ? And last but not least there was the not so enjoyable brain wave that those humans likely were refugess from any of the northern battlegrounds. This included the one his own kind was involved in. So... maybe someone would step into the breach and boldly claim that both he and Aeryn were captives ?

Events didn't fail to quickly pass the Skayleigh's mental position. A man in shiny armor and with a damn precious looking sword appeared, even though he obviously had the bad habit of letting its tip rest in the dirt where sand and stones could make it lose its edge very rapidly. He noticed the drow, probably a glitch in An-Hasst's footwork that had exposed her legs, but nothing dangerous happened. At least so far... crossbows were still aimed at them. Not having to conceal anyone anymore, he decided to step forward. The bridge's floorboards protested precariously beneath his feet, something that made him wonder if those spikes had also been placed in the ditch beneath them.

He felt a little flaw in the arguments exchanged so far. What was money worth in a place as remote and cut off from any trade like this ? "If it would assist in the matter we maybe could also offer our workforce for the time we'd stay here. I could imagine that your ongoing construction effort could need it."

@POOHEAD189@Gardevoiran@Mortarion@Fetzen@Stormflyx@BCTheEntity

The Blighted Kingdom

This sounds very tempting to me. If I don't succumb in other duties, including roleplaying, I might start work on an application :)

Into The Dark: Tales of Maroleth

I'll have to read up a few posts since my sickness has prevented me from doing things, but I hope I'll be able to get up at least something short within the next days :/