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So. If there's any room left...
Name: Khorin Stormborn
Gender: Male
Race: High elf
Class: Mage/ranger?
Age: 43
Affiliation: N/A
Skills/magic/abilities:
Metamagic: Not so much a school of magic so much as a greater understanding of magic’s workings, metamagic is in fact an extension of the distinctive Rebound technique utilized by Rangers of the Arrow. Khorin, in response to his diminished magical might, has become adept at manipulating the magicks of others. He can dispel enchantments, commandeer flung spells, repurpose spells back into raw mana, or gather their energies to unleash as pure arcane force. The difficulty of commandeering magic, of course, is dependent on the talent and experience of the mage, but even against aged magi it grants Khorin an unconventional vector of attack that his foe must be wary of.
Force Magic: Though it is not what it once was, Khorin’s expertise in this school remains distinguished. He can batter foes with telekinetic force and conjure repulsive blasts.
Lightning Magic: Khorin was once famed for his use of this sphere – he owes it his moniker as ‘Stormborn’. His condition, however, impedes its use to a humiliating degree. He is barely capable of producing a bright flash, let alone anything harmful.
Void Magic: Time and space work in mysterious ways within the Fade. In his search to find magicks that will accept his current state, Khorin has delved into the dangerous and – some would say – heretical study of manipulating the Fade’s relationship with the mortal world. Void magic is precise, unpredictable, but essentially non-violent; it is an art of manoeuvrability and versatility rather than one of force. It renders unto Khorin the following incantations:
Out of Step – Khorin uses this spell to edge just slightly sidelong of the physical world, balancing precariously between mortal reality and the Fade. Useful for anonymity, this state turns him into a shimmering approximation of himself, obscuring his features and outlining him in an aurora of unsettling distortion. While out of step Khorin is less subject to physical laws, and can walk on perfectly vertical surfaces, make implausible leaps, or land unharmed from great heights.
Fadeleap – This power utilizes the divide in spatial law between reality and the Fade to allow Khorin (and up to two passengers) to vanish from one spot and reappear at another. The transition is not quite instantaneous, but it is very fast.
Fade Cloak – Khorin waves his hand (or staff) and creates an undulating field of unstable space where reality and the Fade overlap. Phenomena entering the field disappear from the mortal world. They are ejected back at Khorin’s leisure.
Wyrding – Unleashing a wave of distortion, Khorin muddles time’s grip upon the world around him. Everything in his immediate vicinity temporarily moves and perceives several steps slower than the rest of the world. To those caught in the blast radius, everything else (and Khorin himself) appears to move by at incredible speed. Objects caught by the spell are outside of normal time, and as such cannot be harmed for its duration.
Void Magic is powerful but dangerous. If used unwisely or imprecisely, it can attract the wrong sort of attention from the denizens of the Fade.
Heartless: Khorin’s condition makes him, in some ways, the closest thing to a truly ‘undead’ creature in Fereldin. His chest rises and falls primarily out of habit. He needs no food or water, and cannot digest it in any case. The blood in his veins is near still. Only the lyrium simulacrum pulsing in the place of his heart provides him with motion and thought. As result, Khorin is exceptionally difficult to put down for good – nearly any wound, unless it severs his head or gouges his heart, is a flesh wound. On the downside, however, he cannot be healed by magic, and many of his previous magical talents have been crippled.
Surprise! Sword: The sword on Khorin’s belt is not an empty threat – for a mage, he is an excellent swordsman. Steel is nearly always his first resort in combat, unless his foe is learned in the magical arts. He is, however, quite stringent with the rules of honourable engagement and often outmatched by the more creative opponent.
Survivalist: Though he no longer needs to hunt for food, Khorin remembers well his days with the Rangers of the Arrow. He is an excellent woodsman and tracker.
Appearance: In his prime, Khorin was the ideal Quel'Elhen stoic – tall but sturdy, dense but lean, and equipped with a well-cut jawline that spoke of dutiful courage. At first it seemed that his condition would preserve him in that state, but fate has not been so kind. He retains his stature and his leanness (and his apparent youth), but his pallor now seems vaguely ill, and his once dark hair has faded into a washed-out shade of grey. His eyes, which were once the blue of handsome skies, have acquired a dull, milky sheen, as though Khorin is steadily developing cataracts. His features are the same, but his change in lifestyle is reflected in how they are arranged. Rather than heroic, Khorin at a glance seems hawkish and spartan, even cruel – there is something dispassionate and drained of life about them.
Starting equipment:
- A sturdy, unadorned oaken staff for the channelling of magic and the bashing of heads.
- A leaf bladed longsword of Quel'Elhen design. It was granted to Khorin for his distinguished service with the Rangers of the Arrow, and bears a runic inscription that mitigates force.
- A grey, hooded cloak that obscures its wearer somewhat from magical perceptions and demonic notice.
- Signet identifying Khorin as one of Quel'Elhen’s High Mages.
- Badge of office identifying Khorin as a (former) Ranger of the Arrow.
Personality: At a glance, Khorin’s demeanour seems stony and possibly quite forbidding, but this impression generally gives way once he reveals himself to be a well-spoken (almost aggravatingly so – contractions and colloquialisms, apparently, are Khorin’s worst enemies) and polite, if distant, fellow. He often goes about in a soft-spoken manner that most mistake for bookishness, but there is a constant edge of pride to his voice that should betray a measure of Khorin’s depths. He can be a fury when roused, and has very definite ideas about what is right and what is wrong that often see him placed in harm’s way. He has no patience for brigandry or abuse, and little mercy for those who insult his honour. Khorin is an old-fashioned patriot at heart, and he holds himself to a somewhat virtuous standard. Though not precisely a racist, he has been conditioned with what he would consider a proper and healthy mistrust for the Dalish, and despite this can be quite the moral and intellectual pedagogue at times (he brushes this hypocrisy off with implications that all Quel'Elhen hate the Dalish and all Dalish hate the Quel'Elhen, as though it is simply natural. To his credit, however, he is loath to see even Dalish innocents suffer), often seeming eager to lecture those he considers inferior to himself in either category. Khorin clearly loves the realm of Revas’Thala, but seems to despise the notion of returning there – and, like many things, he stubbornly holds the reasoning for this out of reach to most acquaintances.
History: Khorin was born into a time of celebration and nationalistic clamour. A child of Revas’Thala, he was taught to love the newborn city-state as a great mother figure. He was instilled with pride and ardour, and they burned in him like a furnace. In his youth Khorin was diligent – he knew what he had to be and what he could do. He understood his place; he was a son of Revas’Thala, born to the forest kingdom and servant to the woodland queen. It was his duty to take up arms in defence of his home. Khorin knew this, and he poured that sense of blind direction into his studies.
It wasn’t long before his talent as a magus was discovered, and it was with great enthusiasm joined the ranks of the High Mages. He continued to be diligent all through his youth, and his devotion did not go unnoticed. As he grew in age, in power, and in proficiency, his esteem in the eyes of the court expanded proportionally. When done with his studies, the young magus was offered a position with the Rangers of the Arrow – to his eyes, a frontline emplacement dealing directly with the safety and security of Revas’Thala. Khorin could ask for nothing more. He served with the Rangers for many years, and distinguished himself through a multitude of successful mage-hunts and various skirmishes with the ever-present Dalish threat. It was the dedication he exhibited in service to the Rangers that, eventually, prompted his superiors to present Khorin with a new position. He was given no information to base his reply on, save that it was an opportunity to serve Revas’Thala with all his heart.
In a sense, this was quite true. Lyrium, in its processed form, has long been used by mages to allow greater perception of the Fade, and supposedly holds the secret to the anti-magi abilities unique to those of the Templar order. With the Dalish at their gates and no access to the Templars, there were those amongst the courtiers of Revas’Thala most interested in how to apply lyrium as a more effective enhancement. The process they eventually concocted was simple – the subject’s heart would be removed and replaced with a furnace of pure lyrium. In theory, the result would be a mage equipped with a greatly heightened awareness of the Fold, and if fate would have it, a natural predisposition towards antimagic.
Khorin agreed, of course, and by some miracle the process was successful. And when he awoke, he was horrified. He vanished, slipping out of Revas’Thala under cover of darkness. The matter was concealed, and Khorin was pronounced dead – he was said to have died valorously, in a service of great importance to Revas’Thala. His apparent death saw him lavished with decorations and even promoted posthumously. Those involved waited patiently for him to come crawling back, unhappy with life outside of his beloved homeland and drawn to the glitter of medals, but he never returned. And he never forgave.
Starting point: Denerim. He holds down a passable existence there as a tutor of language and etiquette.
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