Moved from the Interest Check thread.

[hider=The Eternal King of Perinne]
[center][img]http://img14.deviantart.net/8eb4/i/2013/363/2/2/thranduil__the_elvenking_by_moshyong-d6zm4mh.jpg[/img]
[h3]King Sardiel of Perinne, a.k.a. King Sardiel the Eternal[/h3][/center]

[b]Gender:[/b] Male
[b]Age:[/b] 2231
[b]Race:[/b] Elf
[b]Allegiance:[/b] Perinne Empire

[hider=Equipment]
[list]
[*] The Royal Armour - A high-quality suit of full plate steel commissioned by Sardiel to maximise his own protection in the event of an inevitable conflict, with metal Lapi stones spread through its structure, allowing it to transform into a semi-fluid state like a full-body suit, to eradicate weak points in its structure, let the bearer move as smoothly as though they were unarmoured, and automatically reinforce itself against particularly hard blows such as those of a mace at the cost of momentary weakness in other areas. A small Lapis stone embedded in the helmet also allows the user to see out of the metal of the helmet as though it were not there whilst transformed, letting even the eyes and head be covered more effectively.
[*] The Royal Mace - A weapon again commissioned by Sardiel to keep up with recent advances in protection, possessing a spiked head of lead coated in hard steel, placed atop and fused to a sturdy metallic pole, then decorated all over with recessed gold trim. Despite its name and appearance, it serves as a physical weapon only, albeit quite a strong weapon that is hard to protect against.
[*] The Royal Shield - Yet another item commissioned by Sardiel, again to assist his own self-defense, this is a steel heater shield embossed with the Perinne family's coat of arms designed more to deflect blows than block them outright, largely because a deflected blow leaves the foe open to a counterattack. It contains a Lapis gem in the handle for the purposes of healing, though said gem rarely needs to be used thanks to the properties of The Royal Armour.
[*] The Royal Swords - A pair of 80cm long steel arming swords, of comparatively simple design by the standards of much of Sardiel's other equipment. These possess a single metal Lapis each in the hilt, most often used by Sardiel to ensure the blades remain inconceivably sharp for the time even after solid blows, though they can in theory be reshaped as desired as a result of the stones' presence.
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[hider=Abilities]
[list]
[*] One of the most major uses of Lapi Sardiel has is that of a very rare sort which, upon activation through a somewhat complicated ritual, significantly slows the user's aging for an extended period of time. In fact, he has completely mastered this form of Lapis, and is vigilant in reapplying its effects when he feels they are close to running out, with the end result that he has not been seen to age at all within the lifespan of anybody currently in his court, and regardless is already nearly three times older than one would expect the natural lifespan of an elf to be, and coming close to twice the age of the next oldest known elf in history, thus granting his moniker as "eternal".
[*] Sardiel is also an accomplished user of various other Lapi, thanks in part to the aforementioned excessive lifespan; most notably is his mastery of lightning Lapis, which he often utilises in combat when he is forced to engage a foe directly, and his mastery of nature Lapis, allowing him to create and grow plants from seemingly nothing, for both utility, such as spontaneous growth of fruiting trees, and combat support, such as vines to restrain a target or sharpened tree branches to stab or lash with. Indeed, by expending a significant portion of his stamina upon a particularly large chunk of nature Lapis, he can create a humanoid tree monster several meters tall, akin to a mindless ent or golem, to fight in his place, either as an automated monstrosity for distraction of the foe whilst he makes his escape, or as a creature directly controlled by his movements such that he can combine his own combat skill with the strength of such a large entity, though the thing does bear somewhat of a weakness to greater quantities of fire even given that it is not made up of dry wood. Other commonly-used Lapi include fire, water, earth, metal, and healing, though he has access to most types of Lapi which exist anyway thanks to his role as king, and none of those listed are specifically mastered in the manner of Sardiel's primary three Lapi.
[*] As with any elf, Sardiel possesses two common ETs. The first is the enhancement of all his senses beyond standard human limits: he can see farther and in more detail at any given distance than nearly all humans, hear a greater range of sounds than any human with higher limits to volume before damage is sustained, detect much more subtle flavours and smells than most humans, and is far more tactile when it comes to pressure and temperature than the majority of humans. However, [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense#Non-traditional_senses]these are not the only senses humans and elves share,[/url] and Sardiel also possesses better senses of balance and acceleration, awareness of the relative positions of his body parts, both sensitivity to pain and threshold for pain before it overwhelms him, and various minor improvements to internal senses. Even his sense of time is better coordinated - where humans will gradually perceive any given time period as being shorter as they age thanks to the relative amount of time experienced by them, and indeed may perceive time as moving faster or slower based on excitement factors, elven minds experience time in a way that makes every hour of every day seem to progress at a constant rate regardless of their age, meaning they don't lose touch with beings of shorter lifespans as a result of essentially perceiving their aging the way a human might perceive that of a dog or cat.
[*] The other ET common to elves is, effectively, an improvement to their overall agility. Thanks to a combination of more flexible joint structures, more specialised muscles, a faster metabolism encouraging a slender build with little body fat, and slightly greater bone plasticity, Sardiel is naturally capable of moving and bending in ways that specialised human contortionists would have trouble emulating. Combined with the enhancement of his senses, he is also far more dextrous than most humans, capable of performing delicate tasks such as crafting minute sculptures that humans might struggle to create. The exchange for this is comparatively lower strength than a human of similar build, though since he is a rather skilled warrior, his physique is not exactly weak to begin with.
[*] Finally, though it is not confirmed to be an ET in itself, it is believed that the minor draconic heritage of the Perinne royal family, Sardiel included, has granted them a certain degree of additional stamina, making them proportionally more capable of engaging in prolonged and/or intense activity, as well as directly improving their spellcasting capability by giving them a greater energy pool to draw from when utilising Lapi.
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[hider=Talents]
[list]
[*] Military tactics and strategy - Sardiel is an accomplished battlefield tactician and strategist, able to figure out the most advantageous locations for any given army to set up and the general movements the troops should take to maximise their effectiveness.
[*] Political strategy - Sardiel is also a highly skilled political manipulator, as any royal ought to be, and is more than capable of figuring out what is best for his kingdom and how best to effectively implement any given decision, as well as various ways of appeasing the nobility of his court as and when it is needed.
[*] Swordsmanship - Sardiel is a generally skilled swordfighter, up to and including the use of two blades; though dual wielding swords would be a foolish thing for most humans to attempt thanks to the complexity of such tasks, the more capable senses and agility that elves naturally possess allow Sardiel to engage in it as comfortably as he would with a single sword or a sword and shield, all further enhanced by how sharp he can make such weapons.
[*] Magic and Lapis use - Naturally, Sardiel is also very accomplished in terms of magical ability; this is explained in more detail in the Abilities section.
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[hider=Personality]
One of Sardiel's primary motivations is his intense fear of death. He is a naturally rather paranoid individual as a result, and has taken many precautions to ensure that he will not die by any means, ranging from myriad bodyguards to protect him whilst he sleeps to several food testers of different races to generally remaining off the battlefield when he can and leading from behind when he must, even though he has trained extensively in the use of blade, bludgeon, and Lapis alike to further ensure he will remain alive as long as he possibly can. Whilst this does provide him with a great deal of motivation in all areas, not just those focused on his own lifespan, it also means he finds it very difficult to have complete faith and trust in anybody, with even his King's Guard not immune to suspicion if he believes a member of the royal court has reason to want him dead.

That being said, he is not as tyrannical or draconian as one might imagine, and in fact takes his role as Perinne's king quite seriously, utilising his natural drive, long years of experience and knowledge of how to rule, as well as those of his leading generals and King's Guard, to develop and implement solutions to problems in his court and kingdom as they present themselves; the main problem is that in doing so, he regularly focuses his efforts on projects of a grand scale that eclipse the individuals of the realm, which promise great long-term gain that many of the kingdom's shorter-lived inhabitants will not see for a substantial portion of their life, if they even live to see it at all. This is only exacerbated by his immense age even for an elf, and he often does not account for the customs or concerns of the common folk and peasantry as a result - after all, he's lived through two millenia of cultural change; what's another decade or two compared to that?
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[hider=Biography]
Sardiel was born a long while ago, to parents who had recently taken the throne; back then, the culture was noticeably different from how things are in the present day. Most notably, there was a significantly-reduced presence of elven nobles in the court of Perinne, as many such families had yet to achieve the success and wealth that centuries of experience helps to catalyse without strictly guaranteeing either. Many of those present at the time were instead human, and Sardiel soon noticed that the older humans in the court, servant and noble alike, would sometimes disappear permanently with no warning. Though his parents gave reasons for their vanishing during his childhood, such as "we removed them from their position for doing a bad job" and "they're taking an extended rest in the next country over", maturity brought with it an ever more unhealthy awareness of the concept of death, and the fact that even elves were not immune to their lives ending, a point hammered in quite roughly when Sardiel was unfortunate enough to have one of the eldest elves in court expire of heart failure right in front of him.

Naturally, this shaped much of his future mindset, most notably the permanent fear that he too would eventually die. He desperately did not want to die. What would happen if he died? Maybe his soul would be taken to an afterlife of grand scope and high adventure, as the religion of the time dictated... and then again, maybe he'd just be permanently incognizant, save if a necromancer drew his soul back into the realm of the living. Or worse, subjected to some impossible nightmare for no good reason, other than that he'd failed to survive beyond his time. For two hundred years, these ideas plagued him, leaving him despondent and insular day-in and day-out, and he even considered hiring a necromancer to resurrect him as some form of undead entity just to ensure he would not die of old age.

And then, one day, he had an inconceivable stroke of luck. Two decades or so ago, a minute stockpile of Lapis had been acquired within Perinne- no more than a few gemstones overall- and its effects tested in secret by a significant mage group at the time, and it had been discovered back then that upon the performance of certain rituals, this Lapis would do something or other. The "something or other" in question had recently been revealed as slowing the aging process, for several of the older users had yet to pass on, whilst the younger users seemed to be very similar in age to how they had been years before. Naturally, the mages of the guild saw this as a form of minor miracle; just as naturally, upon Sardiel's discovery of the substance, he demanded as soon as possible that the group give him one of those stones and the instructions for how to use it, though he offered a quite handsome sum of money in return. Since one does not refuse an order (or payment) from royalty without good cause, even as a guild of mages, they agreed to his terms, and granted him the stone and the information on how to use it.

His first anti-aging ritual was performed that very night, and paved the way for him to progress further into the realms of magic and Lapi use over the course of his life. With each ritual, his aging slowed more and more heavily, and he was ever vigilant about ensuring he performed these regularly. At three hundred, he appeared to be two hundred and sixty; at four hundred, upon the deaths of his dear parents and his coronation as king, he seemed merely two hundred and ninety; and at six hundred, after the birth of his third and final child, he looked to be no more than three hundred and ten. This pattern continued accordingly for hundreds more years, until Sardiel finally mastered the anti-aging Lapis completely, and his appearance ceased to advance from an apparent three hundred and thirty five years or so, even though by then he was more than a millennium old, his wife deceased and his eldest child approaching a quite elderly state.

So, too, had the people of the land begun questioning the state of affairs of royal progression: whilst many of the shorter-lived races were unaware of how unnaturally youthful Sardiel was, many longer-lived beings such as elves, and indeed plenty of nobles in a court that was by now already beginning to shift toward elven monopoly, were beginning to ask exactly when Sardiel would perish and pass his crown on to his children. As well, a lot of people were not necessarily content with his ruling style, his tendency to consider the long term gain over the short term loss, the many over the few, the kingdom's expansion over mere local customs and fears. And so, as both self-protection and assuaging of fears, Sardiel developed a plan to fake his own death.

The next day, King Sardiel rode off for a distant land, escorted by a small batallion of guards. Eight days later, the guards returned with a corpse, announcing that the king had unfortunately expired of some rare illness in that land, and that the throne would now belong to his eldest, or his eldest if he should expire before coronation.

The day after that, Sardiel returned to the castle in secret, undetected by anyone, and ensconced himself in the castle's inner sanctum. There, he handed a false crown to his (frankly surprised) eldest child to be declared king with, for though he might be king in name, Sardiel's continued semi-mortal existence meant he was naught but a figurehead. The power remained with his father alone, and if he and his descendants wanted to prove themselves loyal, they would comply with the true king's orders, and take this secret to their graves save for telling the truth to their own children. Some time later, it occurred to Sardiel that perhaps not [i]all[/i] of the current "king"'s children would need to be informed, but by then all of his grandchildren and even some great-grandchildren knew. He supposed it wasn't entirely bad form; after all, he'd need informants to tell him the current state of affairs beyond and within the walls of the castle.

Another millennium or so passed. Sardiel's children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, passed into and out of life; Sardiel continued to live unaging in that time, his descendants bringing him food, drink, and interaction. After a time, one of them brought in a few servants to assist Sardiel's life and personal interaction; though he was furious at first, especially after learning about discussions early on of how similar each new king's ruling policy had been to Sardiel's own, evolving into a semi-myth about some vastly-powerful demon called "The Eternal King" who controlled each monarch of Perinne (which over time was growing into a full-blown empire spanning multiple countries) into doing its bidding, it transpired that none broke the secret of his continued existence to the world at large, and he eventually adapted to the change in circumstance, even managing to convince some of them to sneak Lapis stones of various sorts into the inner sanctum to let him continue practicing his magical abilities as needed.

Unfortunately, the scope of the cover-up eventually became too grand to hide. Sardiel still has no clue who revealed that he was still alive and ruling from the shadows to the court and world alike, be it one of his younger descendants or a newer servant who had yet to establish how extreme the consequences of their actions might be. However, it stood that the current "king" was the one to inform him of his rediscovered existence, and that in light of "the miraculous discovery about his ancestor's continued existence", as it was put to the court with no indication that he'd known about him beforehand, he had abdicated from the throne entirely in favour of his maniple-great-grandparent, who after all was "far more qualified to rule kindly and fairly thanks to their experience and wisdom".

Sardiel found it hard to be angry or scared about this turn of events, mostly because he was rushed into his "re-coronation" almost as soon as the prior "king" announced his abdication to Sardiel. It quickly became clear that opinions in the court (now very heavily populated by elves) were mixed about his return and/or hiding in the shadows - some saw it as the same miraculous discovery it had been pitched as, and others believed it might be good to have an experienced warrior in charge; some were relatively indifferent, whilst others still were enraged at apparently being lied to, either about his continued existence outright, or else that he'd possibly been pulling the strings for far longer than he had any right to in their eyes. Some even attributed the name of the non-existent demon that myths had been built about to Sardiel himself, in praise and in mockery alike. And of course, Sardiel knew full well that these sentiments would be emulated in the empire at large, with much more dire results than simple anger: civil war was surely on the horizon.

Quickly, he arranged his affairs to prepare for the inevitable. The smiths and enchanters were ordered to construct a new set of equipment- armour, shield, mace, and swords- for "the ruling monarch both present and future", though he fully intended this ruling monarch to be himself for the rest of time now that the truth was known, "and the family of the same". He hired individuals of a mildly unscrupulous nature to burrow through the court, up to and including the King's Guard, to determine who if any were disloyal to him, and purged from their positions of power and wealth anyone who it seemed was even slightly opposed to the crown, replacing them with others who he could be sure would not turn against him; once again, he sacrificed short-term gain for long-term benefit, as he knew this move would surely be seen as draconian in nature and accelerate the oncoming storm's arrival, though he believed it utterly necessary to ensure he would survive to see the storm pass.

And finally, funds were invested into the military: soldiers, knights, and generals were hired and trained as needed, combat equipment was produced at a rate unseen since the conflict against a neighboring empire three hundred years ago, military outposts were set up in the most important areas of Perinne's rule, and guard patrols became more frequent throughout the land of Perinne. All to help combat what by then was beginning to present itself as a rising movement, in the form of the so-called Glanz Empire, the start of a legacy that Sardiel was sure would prove to be a corrupt and rotten hulk throughout. Power, after all, is a force that corrupts many, indeed an end rather than a means; if he himself wasn't evidence of that, he didn't know what was.

He prays he will have the courage to relinquish the excess of power he has built up once the war is over. Moreso, he prays he will have the option to begin with.
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[hider=Other]
This stands to reason, but despite his skill at arms and magic, Sardiel will rarely fight personally unless he has no other choice, in practically all other situations choosing to flee situations that threaten his life instead. Better, in his mind, to live a coward and return to redeem oneself than to die gloriously and prove to be a meaningless martyr, or worse to be imprisoned by an uncaring or even sadistic foe.
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