@Leos Klien
Okay, where to start…
Name: Valerion Draviis
This is not a Breton name in the slightest. In the lore, Breton names always teetered on fantastical, but still faintly pseudo-European and full-on French/Saxon.
Age: 1284
Well, at least I understand the context behind this but, okay… phew… let’s get started.
Race: Breton
Nothing too wrong about this, I guess.
Class: Lich King
(Specialises in Necromancy and dark magics, but is a fearsome wielder of blades and wears medium armour)
No
Duel wielding, heavy armour, speech, conjuration, necromancy, dark destruction(an evil variation of destruction, essentially blood magic), enchanting and smithing.
No, you didn’t even follow the template for skills we put in the rules. Learn to read the OOC before throwing yourself at the GMs, please. Common courtesy that shows us you care.
Appearance:
(View pictures, do note that I am issuing a disclaimer to the art work, I do not own these pieces of art and all credit goes to the perspective creators. I was unable to discover their identity but the disclaimer is still legally accurate.)
Valerion is quite the daunting figure, he stands at 6'2, which is fairly tall for a Breton, as well as this his frame is fairly toned, but quite muscular.
Why the hell is he 6’2” without any explanation? I don’t want to root around in your bio right now, so there’s that. Please, make sure to at least put some effort into every bit of your CS to make it easier on the GMs and also- and this is always a recurring theme- to show us you care.
Personality:
Manipulative, malicious, cold, twisted and enjoys a nice glass of port with his meals. This man is the manifestation of an upper class sociopath.
Other than the fact that he is a very evil person and won't stop at murdering someone in order to achieve his goals he does however see the point in keeping the masses alive and without fear of his existence for this generally complicates life for Valerion and after all these years alive he has learnt a great deal in making others like him, or appreciate him being alive. So whilst his real personality is that of a demon, the one he shows is that of a nice person, happy and cheerful but he generally only shows that amongst the commoners. If he is with a group of people that can handle themselves he lets his true side show.
“If he is with a group of people that can handle themselves, he lets his true side show.” Why? Why couldn’t you actually make a character that had a reason to stick with the party and would fit with the story and theme of the RP?
Why don’t you care?
Bio:
Valerion has spent the majority of his life in Cyrodil, but travels back to his homeland of High Rock every now and then. He enjoys it in Cyrodil the diverse culture and people is something he enjoys, (Diverse? You obviously haven’t played Oblivion, friendo) both him and his other side; Just like wines are different so are souls and Bretons souls can grow quite stale after constantly consuming them.
This is one of the major sides to Valerion that few people know about until its too late. He steals souls in order to continue living. (But that’s not how a Lich works, guy) He either does this by using soul gems that are full, or using his spell Goethia which tears the recipients soul from their body and he then absorbs it. The length of time he accumulates from each method is as follows: (I’m not reading this.)
(From what I did read in the Equipment slot, soul gems are quite hard to come across; this will certainly make life harder for Valerion; despite his modest starting supply; which will be added depending on your decision)
Soul gems-24 hours (Regardless of size)
Black soul gems-48 hours
Goethia- 7 days
And he can siphon souls from the dead around him, each dead body is one hour.
2 things caused this ability to arise. The first is his insatiable quest for strength and absolute power. And the second was his fear of death.
Valerion one day wishes to become the Daedric Prince of Death and so he studies it with great enthusiasm. For a great deal of his time he has lived amongst necromancers within Cyrodil, using them to achieve his own ends and further increasing his knowledge of the dark art of Necromancy. However the necromancers were all killed in a purge at the beginning of the 4th era and Manimarrco was one of them. With that Valerion decided to seclude himself in a abandoned fort in the Jeral mountains which was just near a trade route between Cheydinhal and Bruma.
He caused this route to become infamous as traders and travellers would frequently go missing along it, sometimes even mercenary caravans that numbered in the 20's still vanished never to be seen again. This continued for about 190 years, the cause was never discovered and one day the route became safe again, the threat and evil that loomed over it seemingly vanished over night.
The only reason for this was because Valerion felt that he had exhausted his methods and knowledge of Necromancy and he craved for some fresh air and to walk amongst the people once again.
He traveled to numerous places all over Cyrodil, with the stray drunk being found dead in a ditch a night later from his arrival, thankfully drunks tended to befall tragedy quite often so suspicion never arose by his presence; although his attire did attract attention and queer looks, but other than that Valerion was treat like any other person.
It wasn't till 4E 201 that Valerion felt that his presence was needed elsewhere. Reports of dragons on the border to the Imperial Occupied Skyrim started spreading throughout Cyrodil. This piqued Valerions interest; Dragons were something he had heard about only in legend, and for them to mysteriously appear once again after thousands of years... Valerions curiosity got the better of him and he decided on heading to Skyrim. After passing through the Pale pass, that acted as border between the two countries Valerion went off the beaten track and started looking into the ancient ruins that were built in the era of the Dovah, and used as fonts of worship, as well as holding the supporters of the scaled menaces.
Whilst in the southern region Valerion had witnessed firsthand the might of dragons, the town; that Valerion later found out be Helgen, was razed down to the ground by a Black dragon as he watched from afar. There was little he could do for the inhabitants there except scatter their ashes, and quite frankly Valerion was still weak from his long break.
Since then, Valerion has been scouring the countryside on any knowledge he can find about the second advent of the Dovah, and as of late killing and absorbing the souls of any dovah and Dragon born (THERE’S ONLY THE FUCKING ONE DRAGONBORN) he comes across. So far he has only killed one dragon, and will soon learn his first dragon shout. (That’s not even how it works, GUY.)
Equipment:
(Kindly ignore the bow on his back)
The armour he wears is a medium plate of Ebony and moonstone with an underlay of chain mail, the combination is a pioneer level piece of crafting and metal work. However, whilst it is quite possibly one of the most sophisticated pieces of armour in Mundas, it can’t be enchanted, Valerion has spent fruitless hours trying to imbued magic into it, but every attempt has failed. This is a large offset, however the sheer durability and surprising lightweight set of armour soon makes up for it.
Valerion has named the suit ‘Drakeskin carapace’ after the fabled Dragon scales natural resistance to magic.
He also carries with him 3 swords. One large claymore; made from tempered steel that is commonly found in the scabbard on his back. The hilt being grabbed from over the right shoulder with left hand allows Valerion to unleash a swing merely by drawing his blade, giving the guise that he is open for a strike enemies charge in, only to lose their head in their eagerness to exploit what appears to be a glaring weakness.
Many have fallen through this. The other two swords he has are his own creations, based off the designs of Akiviri katanas, they are ebony blades both found attached to his left hip, covered by a long, tattered, crimson cloak, that covers most of his left abdomen, arm and thigh. The enemy won’t be aware of their existence until it’s too late. (Or they’ll see some fucking weirdo walking towards them and peace out.)
One is named Zandekatsu, the other Mansumune.(Why are they named this? Did Valerion come from Japan?) His claymore is called “The fell blade”(Why isn’t the name capitalized?) The only enchanted blade in his arsenal that grows in strength and becomes lighter with each kill he makes, a absorbing power from the blood of the vanquished.
List of Dark magic spells he has available: (None, because dark magic doesn’t real)
Fates spear- Much akin to what Icy spear looks like however it is a fluctuating spear of dark and deep purple energy that can tear through multiple opponents, upon doing so it begins to boil the blood and disintegrate, any armour that was in the vicinity of the impact point. Whilst crippling it doesn't last long and anyone who manages to walk away from this will likely survive.
Eclipsing Strike- A variation of the touch magics from Cyrodiil, the hand that is used for this spell becomes a claw of absolute darkness it's very large and has 3 sharp and long talons. This shreds light armour and does large bleeding damage, whilst failing to penetrate deep through the body.
Dimensional Lunge- The user pulls out their blade and performs a forward strike, they then disappear through a portal into Oblivion and reappear behind an enemy from over 150 meters away, the attack is likely to be lethal, however experienced enemies can prepare, as well as enemies in a 1v1.
Reapers Embrace- Very useful magic, and oddly designed to protect others, something very rarely seen in dark magics. The user envelopes himself and another in a pitch black cloak, any damage inflicted on the shield will be unleashed in a powerful shock wave knocking back enemies outside of a 5 meter radius, but any enemy caught inside 5 meters of the shield will be disintegrated and their soul sent to oblivion.
All of the spells mentioned require life energy, as a result the user must use a soul gem by crushing it in the palm they are about to use the spell in before they cast it, except for Valerion who can use them indefinitely but they weaken him in doing so. He may teach these spells to others if he grows fond of them, and they are prepared for the consequences that come with their use.
Other: Enjoys High society and has a lot of gold to his name, accumulation of great deal of time has made him very rich. But he is conservative in its use.
Valerion is slowly dying, he requires souls to continue living, every day he goes without absorbing a soul causes him to wither, bones grow weak, eyesight falters and his heart beats slower... after 1 week he will get desperate and take anyone's soul, innocent or otherwise, be it in the middle of a city or in the wilderness it matters not.
Because he is technically not alive, restoration magic is useless on him.
Valerions story: His early life.
Valerion was born into a middle to upper class family in the High Rock region of Glenumbra, the year he was born was E2 245, making Valerion 1284 years old at the beginning of the dragon crisis.
His name, however, at birth was Veras Trion, his family being landholders and of an influential name, and having some form of influence of the days politics and other petty lords and ladies.
Valerion’s upbringing made him a fine candidate for his assumption of his families holdings and steadily growing influence, he proved to be an efficient leader, a shrewd negotiator and quite the man for a mind with business.
On top of that his studies in to magic yielded much as did his training with the sword.
His parents were beyond happy and satisfied with their son, someone who’d prove to be the one who would ascend their families name into the higher ranks of the nobility, when he was of the age of 22, however. He began to grow tired for waiting for his place as the family’s leader, and so, when his parents went to Daggerfell to convene with the other lords they were ‘’tragically’’ killed upon the road by a host of unknown assailants.
The other local nobility and the grander nobles of the provinces capital sent their sympathies and their hand in support of ruling his family’s lands, an offer Valerion thanked them graciously for, but in reality laughed at their petty attempts to assume a grip onto the lands that HE now owned; the lands he rightfully deserved.
It was here that Valerion learnt his first lessons in ‘pleasing the peasants’, as he called it.
These were incredibly important, as his predecessors were very proficient in keeping the farmers, and peasantry as well as the lower nobility happy which was no easy task.
There were many trips along the way, the worst being a small scale uprising by one of the houses Veras had managed to annoy greatly over some petty feud. He had them all put down for their transgressions, which kept most of the others under his control in their place.
When Veras hit the age of 34, he began to delve into some of the more unsavoury magics that were available, assuming a court mage; named Kaitlin Emriin, whom was an adept in Conjuration and even a student of necromancy.
It was at this moment that Veras started to learn about the power one could obtain from the planes of oblivion themselves, he started training in Conjuration immediately and within months bypassed his mentor in proficiency, together the two of them became fast friends and very powerful conjurers.
But it’s one thing to study and perform magic, but it’s another to learn the process behind it, the energies involved and to delve into the secrets of the arcane. Both of them started experimenting with spells fuelled by the desire to answer the questions of: Which plane of oblivion do they come from? Why does the lord of that plane allow the summoning? Is there a hidden price no one knows about?
All of these questions and many more were either just answered with theories or left unanswered, and the odd one came with a result. In the end, both of them abandoned their pursuits of magical theories and started expanding their knowledge in other areas, travelling to various locations in Glenmubra in order to try and get answers to former questions, or power and further knowledge of the arcane.
When Veras hit 47 worry started to work its way into his mind, that death would be here for him eventually and he didn’t really have much to show for the life he had lived. His house and name were fairly elevated amongst the higher echelons of the nobility, he commanded sway in both politics and law, and for the general rule people liked their ruler of their lands. But he handed that to his cousin, Veras’ pursuit of power and immortality began here, and he left on good terms with a fairly respected branch of his family’s tree.
With his friend at his side and his name sided with a considerable wealth left Glenumbra in pursuit of knowledge.
It took 2 years but they started to learn more about the life energy know as the ‘soul’; they were stationed in an old crumbling fort within Storm Haven, just a few miles south of Wayrest, right near the coast, they knew that soul trap was a very useful spell for the acquisition of souls but you needed a special vessel to contain the soul. And even then it was a mere shade of the real thing, its power very limited.
And so began the experiments in trying to find a way to ‘harvest’ the soul, at first it started on animals, with little success. So they moved onto more powerful animals, gaining scars and long nights on the hunt with once again, next to no power or life gained from the pure essence of the soul.
Eventually they realised that little could be gained from the standard Soul trap, so they bastardised it, malformed it and twisted it, into a spell that could tear the energy from their target and transmit it straight back to the caster, rather than losing much of its power and potential by constraining it into a soul gem.
They named it Goethia.
Now all’s it needed was a test, on a human, Kaitlin went and got a trader from the Wayrest, hoping to lure him into a trap that they’d set up, the story was as simple as valuing some of the things they had, persuaded with a few buts of silver and he did that.
Once the man got there Veras appeared in front of the man, he had a confused look on his face but before he could open his mouth top voice his doubts Veras used the spell Goethia, and the result was cataclysmic.
Whilst the spell worked perfectly as it rent the soul from man; his scream filled with agony resonated through the walls of the fort; it did something incomprehensible to Veras as he absorbed the soul.
At the time, he felt as if someone had used a lightning bolt on him, he became fully aware and his thoughts and feelings were going hyperactive, he eventually calmed down but the end result was conclusive, that he had gained time on his life and power from the soul.
It wasn't till decades down the line that he would fully understand the consequences of that action.
After that seemingly obvious success of the spell they had created both Veras and Kaitlin began to use out at least once a day, on animals which only granted them small bouts of power but that was enough to satisfy them.
For the time being anyway, Veras had no trouble with the actions against the trader, but Kaitlin had her doubts about using it on other humans, even people who deserved it. This was a common debate between the two but never the less the opportunity didn’t arise for their argument to be put into reality for many years.
The both of them used the time to explore the world no knowing that they wouldn’t have to worry about time anymore; they left High Rock and started delving into Orinisium, Skyrim, Cyrodil, Valenwood, The black marsh and Morrowind.
Their travels and exploits as famous adventurers found themselves on the tongues of traders and patrons at inns as well places were the adventuring type went to for respite, joy or a place to rest.
And it remained for like that for 20 years.
But the first niche of their long lives started to permeate through the surface , the question on everybody’s minds were how adventurers so old could still be doing their job with such vigour. Their previous competitors had either all died out or were in retirement, at first it was admiration that both Veras and Kaitlin were still doing their thing, but it soon turned to bafflement and confusion, and jealousy.
And so, came the first decision that they had to make, which was to vanish after going into a ruin, and only resurface once their names were lost to legend, resurfacing with new names and a new role in the world.
But only one would in the end.
(tl;dr, guy becomes lich and is imbued with ancient Japanese secrets from above and so gets two genuine katanas and becomes the last samurai, I think.)
Okay, where to start…
Name: Valerion Draviis
This is not a Breton name in the slightest. In the lore, Breton names always teetered on fantastical, but still faintly pseudo-European and full-on French/Saxon.
Age: 1284
Well, at least I understand the context behind this but, okay… phew… let’s get started.
Race: Breton
Nothing too wrong about this, I guess.
Class: Lich King
(Specialises in Necromancy and dark magics, but is a fearsome wielder of blades and wears medium armour)
No
Duel wielding, heavy armour, speech, conjuration, necromancy, dark destruction(an evil variation of destruction, essentially blood magic), enchanting and smithing.
No, you didn’t even follow the template for skills we put in the rules. Learn to read the OOC before throwing yourself at the GMs, please. Common courtesy that shows us you care.
Appearance:
(View pictures, do note that I am issuing a disclaimer to the art work, I do not own these pieces of art and all credit goes to the perspective creators. I was unable to discover their identity but the disclaimer is still legally accurate.)
Valerion is quite the daunting figure, he stands at 6'2, which is fairly tall for a Breton, as well as this his frame is fairly toned, but quite muscular.
Why the hell is he 6’2” without any explanation? I don’t want to root around in your bio right now, so there’s that. Please, make sure to at least put some effort into every bit of your CS to make it easier on the GMs and also- and this is always a recurring theme- to show us you care.
Personality:
Manipulative, malicious, cold, twisted and enjoys a nice glass of port with his meals. This man is the manifestation of an upper class sociopath.
Other than the fact that he is a very evil person and won't stop at murdering someone in order to achieve his goals he does however see the point in keeping the masses alive and without fear of his existence for this generally complicates life for Valerion and after all these years alive he has learnt a great deal in making others like him, or appreciate him being alive. So whilst his real personality is that of a demon, the one he shows is that of a nice person, happy and cheerful but he generally only shows that amongst the commoners. If he is with a group of people that can handle themselves he lets his true side show.
“If he is with a group of people that can handle themselves, he lets his true side show.” Why? Why couldn’t you actually make a character that had a reason to stick with the party and would fit with the story and theme of the RP?
Why don’t you care?
Bio:
Valerion has spent the majority of his life in Cyrodil, but travels back to his homeland of High Rock every now and then. He enjoys it in Cyrodil the diverse culture and people is something he enjoys, (Diverse? You obviously haven’t played Oblivion, friendo) both him and his other side; Just like wines are different so are souls and Bretons souls can grow quite stale after constantly consuming them.
This is one of the major sides to Valerion that few people know about until its too late. He steals souls in order to continue living. (But that’s not how a Lich works, guy) He either does this by using soul gems that are full, or using his spell Goethia which tears the recipients soul from their body and he then absorbs it. The length of time he accumulates from each method is as follows: (I’m not reading this.)
(From what I did read in the Equipment slot, soul gems are quite hard to come across; this will certainly make life harder for Valerion; despite his modest starting supply; which will be added depending on your decision)
Soul gems-24 hours (Regardless of size)
Black soul gems-48 hours
Goethia- 7 days
And he can siphon souls from the dead around him, each dead body is one hour.
2 things caused this ability to arise. The first is his insatiable quest for strength and absolute power. And the second was his fear of death.
Valerion one day wishes to become the Daedric Prince of Death and so he studies it with great enthusiasm. For a great deal of his time he has lived amongst necromancers within Cyrodil, using them to achieve his own ends and further increasing his knowledge of the dark art of Necromancy. However the necromancers were all killed in a purge at the beginning of the 4th era and Manimarrco was one of them. With that Valerion decided to seclude himself in a abandoned fort in the Jeral mountains which was just near a trade route between Cheydinhal and Bruma.
He caused this route to become infamous as traders and travellers would frequently go missing along it, sometimes even mercenary caravans that numbered in the 20's still vanished never to be seen again. This continued for about 190 years, the cause was never discovered and one day the route became safe again, the threat and evil that loomed over it seemingly vanished over night.
The only reason for this was because Valerion felt that he had exhausted his methods and knowledge of Necromancy and he craved for some fresh air and to walk amongst the people once again.
He traveled to numerous places all over Cyrodil, with the stray drunk being found dead in a ditch a night later from his arrival, thankfully drunks tended to befall tragedy quite often so suspicion never arose by his presence; although his attire did attract attention and queer looks, but other than that Valerion was treat like any other person.
It wasn't till 4E 201 that Valerion felt that his presence was needed elsewhere. Reports of dragons on the border to the Imperial Occupied Skyrim started spreading throughout Cyrodil. This piqued Valerions interest; Dragons were something he had heard about only in legend, and for them to mysteriously appear once again after thousands of years... Valerions curiosity got the better of him and he decided on heading to Skyrim. After passing through the Pale pass, that acted as border between the two countries Valerion went off the beaten track and started looking into the ancient ruins that were built in the era of the Dovah, and used as fonts of worship, as well as holding the supporters of the scaled menaces.
Whilst in the southern region Valerion had witnessed firsthand the might of dragons, the town; that Valerion later found out be Helgen, was razed down to the ground by a Black dragon as he watched from afar. There was little he could do for the inhabitants there except scatter their ashes, and quite frankly Valerion was still weak from his long break.
Since then, Valerion has been scouring the countryside on any knowledge he can find about the second advent of the Dovah, and as of late killing and absorbing the souls of any dovah and Dragon born (THERE’S ONLY THE FUCKING ONE DRAGONBORN) he comes across. So far he has only killed one dragon, and will soon learn his first dragon shout. (That’s not even how it works, GUY.)
Equipment:
(Kindly ignore the bow on his back)
The armour he wears is a medium plate of Ebony and moonstone with an underlay of chain mail, the combination is a pioneer level piece of crafting and metal work. However, whilst it is quite possibly one of the most sophisticated pieces of armour in Mundas, it can’t be enchanted, Valerion has spent fruitless hours trying to imbued magic into it, but every attempt has failed. This is a large offset, however the sheer durability and surprising lightweight set of armour soon makes up for it.
Valerion has named the suit ‘Drakeskin carapace’ after the fabled Dragon scales natural resistance to magic.
He also carries with him 3 swords. One large claymore; made from tempered steel that is commonly found in the scabbard on his back. The hilt being grabbed from over the right shoulder with left hand allows Valerion to unleash a swing merely by drawing his blade, giving the guise that he is open for a strike enemies charge in, only to lose their head in their eagerness to exploit what appears to be a glaring weakness.
Many have fallen through this. The other two swords he has are his own creations, based off the designs of Akiviri katanas, they are ebony blades both found attached to his left hip, covered by a long, tattered, crimson cloak, that covers most of his left abdomen, arm and thigh. The enemy won’t be aware of their existence until it’s too late. (Or they’ll see some fucking weirdo walking towards them and peace out.)
One is named Zandekatsu, the other Mansumune.(Why are they named this? Did Valerion come from Japan?) His claymore is called “The fell blade”(Why isn’t the name capitalized?) The only enchanted blade in his arsenal that grows in strength and becomes lighter with each kill he makes, a absorbing power from the blood of the vanquished.
List of Dark magic spells he has available: (None, because dark magic doesn’t real)
Fates spear- Much akin to what Icy spear looks like however it is a fluctuating spear of dark and deep purple energy that can tear through multiple opponents, upon doing so it begins to boil the blood and disintegrate, any armour that was in the vicinity of the impact point. Whilst crippling it doesn't last long and anyone who manages to walk away from this will likely survive.
Eclipsing Strike- A variation of the touch magics from Cyrodiil, the hand that is used for this spell becomes a claw of absolute darkness it's very large and has 3 sharp and long talons. This shreds light armour and does large bleeding damage, whilst failing to penetrate deep through the body.
Dimensional Lunge- The user pulls out their blade and performs a forward strike, they then disappear through a portal into Oblivion and reappear behind an enemy from over 150 meters away, the attack is likely to be lethal, however experienced enemies can prepare, as well as enemies in a 1v1.
Reapers Embrace- Very useful magic, and oddly designed to protect others, something very rarely seen in dark magics. The user envelopes himself and another in a pitch black cloak, any damage inflicted on the shield will be unleashed in a powerful shock wave knocking back enemies outside of a 5 meter radius, but any enemy caught inside 5 meters of the shield will be disintegrated and their soul sent to oblivion.
All of the spells mentioned require life energy, as a result the user must use a soul gem by crushing it in the palm they are about to use the spell in before they cast it, except for Valerion who can use them indefinitely but they weaken him in doing so. He may teach these spells to others if he grows fond of them, and they are prepared for the consequences that come with their use.
Other: Enjoys High society and has a lot of gold to his name, accumulation of great deal of time has made him very rich. But he is conservative in its use.
Valerion is slowly dying, he requires souls to continue living, every day he goes without absorbing a soul causes him to wither, bones grow weak, eyesight falters and his heart beats slower... after 1 week he will get desperate and take anyone's soul, innocent or otherwise, be it in the middle of a city or in the wilderness it matters not.
Because he is technically not alive, restoration magic is useless on him.
Valerions story: His early life.
Valerion was born into a middle to upper class family in the High Rock region of Glenumbra, the year he was born was E2 245, making Valerion 1284 years old at the beginning of the dragon crisis.
His name, however, at birth was Veras Trion, his family being landholders and of an influential name, and having some form of influence of the days politics and other petty lords and ladies.
Valerion’s upbringing made him a fine candidate for his assumption of his families holdings and steadily growing influence, he proved to be an efficient leader, a shrewd negotiator and quite the man for a mind with business.
On top of that his studies in to magic yielded much as did his training with the sword.
His parents were beyond happy and satisfied with their son, someone who’d prove to be the one who would ascend their families name into the higher ranks of the nobility, when he was of the age of 22, however. He began to grow tired for waiting for his place as the family’s leader, and so, when his parents went to Daggerfell to convene with the other lords they were ‘’tragically’’ killed upon the road by a host of unknown assailants.
The other local nobility and the grander nobles of the provinces capital sent their sympathies and their hand in support of ruling his family’s lands, an offer Valerion thanked them graciously for, but in reality laughed at their petty attempts to assume a grip onto the lands that HE now owned; the lands he rightfully deserved.
It was here that Valerion learnt his first lessons in ‘pleasing the peasants’, as he called it.
These were incredibly important, as his predecessors were very proficient in keeping the farmers, and peasantry as well as the lower nobility happy which was no easy task.
There were many trips along the way, the worst being a small scale uprising by one of the houses Veras had managed to annoy greatly over some petty feud. He had them all put down for their transgressions, which kept most of the others under his control in their place.
When Veras hit the age of 34, he began to delve into some of the more unsavoury magics that were available, assuming a court mage; named Kaitlin Emriin, whom was an adept in Conjuration and even a student of necromancy.
It was at this moment that Veras started to learn about the power one could obtain from the planes of oblivion themselves, he started training in Conjuration immediately and within months bypassed his mentor in proficiency, together the two of them became fast friends and very powerful conjurers.
But it’s one thing to study and perform magic, but it’s another to learn the process behind it, the energies involved and to delve into the secrets of the arcane. Both of them started experimenting with spells fuelled by the desire to answer the questions of: Which plane of oblivion do they come from? Why does the lord of that plane allow the summoning? Is there a hidden price no one knows about?
All of these questions and many more were either just answered with theories or left unanswered, and the odd one came with a result. In the end, both of them abandoned their pursuits of magical theories and started expanding their knowledge in other areas, travelling to various locations in Glenmubra in order to try and get answers to former questions, or power and further knowledge of the arcane.
When Veras hit 47 worry started to work its way into his mind, that death would be here for him eventually and he didn’t really have much to show for the life he had lived. His house and name were fairly elevated amongst the higher echelons of the nobility, he commanded sway in both politics and law, and for the general rule people liked their ruler of their lands. But he handed that to his cousin, Veras’ pursuit of power and immortality began here, and he left on good terms with a fairly respected branch of his family’s tree.
With his friend at his side and his name sided with a considerable wealth left Glenumbra in pursuit of knowledge.
It took 2 years but they started to learn more about the life energy know as the ‘soul’; they were stationed in an old crumbling fort within Storm Haven, just a few miles south of Wayrest, right near the coast, they knew that soul trap was a very useful spell for the acquisition of souls but you needed a special vessel to contain the soul. And even then it was a mere shade of the real thing, its power very limited.
And so began the experiments in trying to find a way to ‘harvest’ the soul, at first it started on animals, with little success. So they moved onto more powerful animals, gaining scars and long nights on the hunt with once again, next to no power or life gained from the pure essence of the soul.
Eventually they realised that little could be gained from the standard Soul trap, so they bastardised it, malformed it and twisted it, into a spell that could tear the energy from their target and transmit it straight back to the caster, rather than losing much of its power and potential by constraining it into a soul gem.
They named it Goethia.
Now all’s it needed was a test, on a human, Kaitlin went and got a trader from the Wayrest, hoping to lure him into a trap that they’d set up, the story was as simple as valuing some of the things they had, persuaded with a few buts of silver and he did that.
Once the man got there Veras appeared in front of the man, he had a confused look on his face but before he could open his mouth top voice his doubts Veras used the spell Goethia, and the result was cataclysmic.
Whilst the spell worked perfectly as it rent the soul from man; his scream filled with agony resonated through the walls of the fort; it did something incomprehensible to Veras as he absorbed the soul.
At the time, he felt as if someone had used a lightning bolt on him, he became fully aware and his thoughts and feelings were going hyperactive, he eventually calmed down but the end result was conclusive, that he had gained time on his life and power from the soul.
It wasn't till decades down the line that he would fully understand the consequences of that action.
After that seemingly obvious success of the spell they had created both Veras and Kaitlin began to use out at least once a day, on animals which only granted them small bouts of power but that was enough to satisfy them.
For the time being anyway, Veras had no trouble with the actions against the trader, but Kaitlin had her doubts about using it on other humans, even people who deserved it. This was a common debate between the two but never the less the opportunity didn’t arise for their argument to be put into reality for many years.
The both of them used the time to explore the world no knowing that they wouldn’t have to worry about time anymore; they left High Rock and started delving into Orinisium, Skyrim, Cyrodil, Valenwood, The black marsh and Morrowind.
Their travels and exploits as famous adventurers found themselves on the tongues of traders and patrons at inns as well places were the adventuring type went to for respite, joy or a place to rest.
And it remained for like that for 20 years.
But the first niche of their long lives started to permeate through the surface , the question on everybody’s minds were how adventurers so old could still be doing their job with such vigour. Their previous competitors had either all died out or were in retirement, at first it was admiration that both Veras and Kaitlin were still doing their thing, but it soon turned to bafflement and confusion, and jealousy.
And so, came the first decision that they had to make, which was to vanish after going into a ruin, and only resurface once their names were lost to legend, resurfacing with new names and a new role in the world.
But only one would in the end.
(tl;dr, guy becomes lich and is imbued with ancient Japanese secrets from above and so gets two genuine katanas and becomes the last samurai, I think.)
