Looks like there's quite a large cast here already, so I'm not sure if I want to join up or not. Regardless, I think it looks like a lot of fun and there are definitely a few characters in my head that would be a good fit on the caravan. I'll keep thinking about it and just watch for now.
Sorry to hear that man, and don't pressure yourself to write on our behalf. The silly little people who live in your computer aren't worth serious real-life impact. Stay safe!
Nah, I don't think it was any kind of stress from GMing that caused the episode, so no worries there.
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♦ Lucalrith Endrose ♦ Luca ♦ Dark Elf / Sphel'ilf ♦ ♦ Thirty-Five ♦ One Year Tenure ♦
The Sphel'ilfre
The term Sphel’ilfre (sfell-ilf-ray) translates to “chasm people” in Sphelse, and when introducing themselves to outsiders, the people of the chasm only refer to themselves as elves, but the term dark elf or dust elf has become popular in the wider world of Alwyne.
The Dark Elves are smaller than their cousins and live shorter, fraught lives, but they mature quickly (physical, social maturity and legal emancipation by thirty years of age; by fifty, the right to own property and hold council is granted) and because of the nature of Asphodel, possess heartier constitutions. They have deep complexions with desaturated tones, grow black, grey, or white hair, and have black eyes with sclera in shades of grey. Their features are delicate and sharp. Their ears are wider than most elves’ and prehensile, and they have frighteningly acute hearing; little light reaches the bottom of the deepest canyons in the world, so they have developed echolocation, and understand their world through sound before sight. It follows that their eyesight, in daylight, is poor. Most find direct light painful.
In character, they are quiet, thoughtful, loyal, proud, aloof, and severe. They value silence and subtlety - in Sphelse, the concepts of evil, brightness, and harshness all share the same word. In conversation, they consider it cruel to pry for more information than is offered, tactless to provide more information than is asked for, and raising one’s voice above a certain octave in public is a punishable offense in some cities. Moral behavior is dictated by respect for those in one’s immediate area, and defense of one’s clan at any cost.
There are no rulers or representatives among the Sphel’ilfre. Instead, the rules of the hearth are the law of the land; each family is given complete sovereignty over their own home and the right to act as executioner should the need arise, and the law of public spaces is decided by a council of the families that share it. Other issues that pertain to more than one family may also be addressed by council.
Sphelse, the language, has two modes. The common, daily mode is known as Sphelse-soto or simply Sphelse, a whispered tongue that avoids using the diaphragm. The second, Sphelse-teno or Keen-speak, is a singing language that can carry for miles through the canyons and caves of Asphodel, and is used to communicate information between scouting parties or in emergencies, such a cave-in. Keen-tunneling is the process of psionically manipulating the larvae of the scaybeetle, a giant species of cicada, into creating small, smooth tunnels between settlements. These tunnels are keened down, allowing travelers to keep in touch with their families and news to spread between Sphelse cities quickly.
Finally, the Dark Elves worship only one unique deity - Wheye, the avatar of Entropy and Decay, is said to take the form of a dark elven woman with the wings of a moth, whose wispy hair sheds stardust and whose manifold robes fall to tatters with every step.
Asphodel
Nestled in the valley between the Obsidian and Edithic mountain ranges, Asphodel is a small, subarctic wasteland, and among the harshest climes in the known world - it seems more like the surface of an extraplanetary realm than anything natural to Alwyne.
Dunes of white, powdery sediment provide some barrier between the unseasoned traveler and the sheets of volcanic glass that coat the topography of Asphodel, but the region is known for its dust storms; wind exposes and erodes at these obsidian deposits and creates twisters of glass shards, so small as to be invisible to the naked eye, that flay skin like blades. Heavy, dark mists blanket Asphodel, toxic enough to kill a grown human over the course of several days if the right precautions are not taken.
Rainfall in this region is highly acidic, and the pools that cluster in the western basin of the wasteland are lethal, but so exquisitely clear and beautiful in color that many have attempted to brave the forsaken land to witness them. This pilgrimage destination is known as the Pillars of Wheye, named for the spires of gypsum and selenite that fence the pools.
Asphodel was not always a barren desert. 40,000 years ago, it was a flourishing steppeland, boasting herds of massive beasts, clans of centaur, and a seasonal flowering that painted the valley in majestic reds and purples. Sphelse legend claims that the basin is the site of an ancient ritual, cast by a collective of elven mages attempting to bring the divine realms to ground for some long-forgotten purpose - whether the alien, inhospitable environment we have today is their success or their failure depends on who you ask.
Regardless of its origin, Asphodel has been incapable of supporting life above ground for some time. In the canyons and caves that form a natural march between the desert and the mountain ranges, however, animals and people alike eke out a living.
↭
The famous bridgelike cities of the Dark Elves, built into the canyons of Asphodel, are structured like so:
To shelter the inhabitants of Sphelse cities from the dangerous weather above, tarps made of fungal leather are stretched across the top of the city’s gulch in layers, with a mesh of soil and mycelium padding between each tarp. Then, various plants and fungi are planted in the underside of the tarps and the walls of the canyon; a bridge is built below, with conjured sources of daylight to nourish the hanging gardens. These Gardens are the foundations of every Sphelse city. They filter both the poisonous air of the surface and the pollution from the below, they provide fresh produce and a healthy habitat for game, and their acidic soils grow rare ingredients used for vital, necessary trade with foreign nations.
Beneath the Gardens lies the Dwelling, where the poor and middle class carve apartments into the walls of the canyon and develop commercial districts on the bridges between. Beneath the Dwelling is the Elysian, the ‘waterfront’ property near the bottom of the ravine and where the palaces of the wealthiest families can be found. Finally, there is the Riverine, built on the banks of the canyon’s river if it has one. If it is one of the five cities that share a river deep enough to support schooners, docks can be found in the Riverine, but mining, fishing, and keen-tunneling can also be found at this level.
The eight Shelse cities are; Acharest, Abiis, Dirgest, Phens, Phassil, Sorics, Ulervest, Viis. Of these, Abiis is the largest - in fact, there is no Riverain district in Abiis, and its canyon is so deep that there is no documented bottom.
Appearance
[5’5”, 104 lbs, grey hair, black eyes] Luca is a short, thin, tired-looking young man. He has an ebony complexion and choppy, damaged hair that should be charcoal grey, but is more often muddled with ash and dust - his features are sharp like all dark elves, with some suggesting a distant mixed heritage, but it's difficult to tell - wide, bruised eyes, a slightly broken nose, prominent cheekbones, a short chin, a brittle smile.
In clothing, he prefers loose, sheer material with bright colors and patterns, precious clasps and buttons, embroidery, and other such embellishments. To put it simply - plain designs with heavy decoration. He often wears a wool poncho, clasped at the shoulder with a symbol of Wheye, and alternates between several earrings; plain copper hoops, a lapis teardrop, lyrebird feathers, and a carnelian stud. When he’s not wearing his blackened goggles, he’ll blindfold himself with gauze to avoid damaging his eyes during the day.
His mannerisms are boneless, but careful. His pace is measured, and he stops often to take account of his surroundings. His clothing and hair smell of cigarettes, spice, and clay. He’s soft-spoken, and his voice is easily his best feature, slow and silvery with a slight smoker’s rasp.
Timeline
The name Endrose can be found in any chronicle of medicinal and alchemical history; the members of this clan guard the secret behind synthesizing Cassandra, a hallucinogenic, paralytic drug said to imbue the user with powerful precognitive abilities (among other innovations, such as the cure to wasting disease). Centuries ago, they enjoyed wealth and power for their contributions, but time and misfortune set them on a steady decline. By the time Luca was born, it was to a clan that numbered less than a dozen.
♦ TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS AGO ♦
Luca’s mother brings them from Phens to the city of Leviathan, a melting pot of humans, dark elves, dwarves, and goblins and the closest port to Asphodel - meaning that all of the rare ingredients produced in Asphodel and nowhere else must be funneled through Leviathan before they are distributed to the rest of Alwyne. Drawing on her contacts in Dirgest and Abiis, she sets up an apothecary, vending illicit material under the table. It’s wildly successful, but it’s stepping on the toes of another prominent family in Leviathan.
♦ TWENTY-THREE YEARS AGO ♦
The Vedics, a clan of dark elves who control a large criminal syndicate in Leviathan, manufacture the death of the apothecary Avamava Endrose, orphan a twelve-year-old Luca, and resume their monopoly over the exportation of regulated produce from Asphodel. Luca’s inheritance is seized by the council that convenes over such matters in Leviathan and it is decided that the assets will be released to him on his fiftieth birthday, or sold to the highest bidder should he perish before then. Luca is placed in a small temple of Wheye.
Within a week of his stay in the temple, he was thanking his mother for the lessons in testing food before eating it; eight of the fourteen bowls of porridge he’d been allowed had been poisoned. Realizing that if he wished to survive the Vedics’ ambitions towards his inheritance, he’d need to stay out of the public eye, Luca leaves the temple. The next decade of his life is spent eking out a living in the underground of Leviathan, doing everything and anything it took to survive.
♦ TEN YEARS AGO ♦
Luca no longer needs to pickpocket, burgle, scam, or worse to make ends meet. He’s squirreled away enough stock and befriended enough proxies to make and sell his own Cassandra, which allows him to eat well, dress well, and most importantly, support the opium addiction he’s developed in recent years. The future seems promising, and Luca begins to build the connections he’ll need to keep himself safe when the time comes to claim his property.
♦ THREE YEARS AGO ♦
Luca makes the mistake of trusting a woman named Edilthshi, charmed by her biting tongue. He allows her into his home one night, and wakes a day and a half later in an unfamiliar wine cellar, mind-addled by a number of poisons, just cognizant enough to suffer severe withdrawal. He makes up for the time he’d spent sleeping in the days the Vedics keep him awake, trying to pry the secret of Cassandra from him through various tortures. It’s like trying to draw blood from a stone, but not because of an iron will on Luca’s part - had he been remotely coherent, he would have told them the truth a hundred times over. He would have murdered his own kin to stop the things they did to him.
He suffers three days of abuse before the magebane they’d been dosing him on lapses enough for him to drain the health from a sleeping guard and cast phase. He abandons the life he’s built for himself and leaves Leviathan.
♦ ONE YEAR AGO ♦
Luca chances upon the Pilgrim’s Caravan outside of a small orchard village. The caravan is convenient for his purposes. He signs on under the guise of an apothecary, but many caravanners are familiar with what he actually supplies, and he draws as much business from within the caravan as he does in the locations they visit.
Personality
His manner is vague and aloof, and you would think there was nobody shyer. Luca’s the quiet sort. He withholds information until he sees a clear benefit in revealing it, but he’s keen to watch others and compile observations. He’s reluctant in conversation and distrustful of most people, despite the fact that he’s desperately lonely. His poker face is excellent, but his nerve is lacking, and the only reason he’s so rarely been accused of cowardice is because he’s adept at covering his tracks when he decides to make like a coward and hide. He’s self-serving and callous, but non-violent by nature. He’s short on scruples, well aware of the fact that scruples can’t be eaten or otherwise imbibed, and he’s yet to find an ethical boundary he’s unwilling to cross; he calls this pragmatism, but his hedonistic quirks and addictive personality speak a different truth.
♦ [DESIRES] ♦
With an eye for the artistic, Luca covets all things beautiful. When he was small, this manifested as a tendency to hoard the textiles, jewelry, and sculptures he liberated from less appreciative audiences wherever he found the space, but necessity has made him sell or abandon his collections. The only comfort he’s found outside of inebriation is in his material possessions, and he wishes to live the tasteful life of a noble - to have clean, healthy hair, to wear tailored and flattering clothing, to sleep on silk and eat fresh fruit. It’s not about the luxury, really, it’s about the look. He already knows that there’s no earthly pleasure that can compare to a calm ocean under the stars, viewed through the lens of blue lotus - often, his desire to be blind on opiates and to look nice compete directly with one another.
♦ [FEARS] ♦
Physical pain and attachment. He’s had many experiences he wishes he could part with, experiences that have prompted his drug abuse to forget, but nothing has stuck with him like Vedic’s hospitality. Beyond that, he favors objects over people because dropping an earring doesn’t cut as deeply as losing a loved one.
♦ [MOTIVATION] ♦
He tells himself that he’s biding his time, waiting until he’s old enough to claim his property and powerful enough to protect it, and that when he’s the head of his own mercantile empire, the Vedics will get their due. The caravan presents a moving target while he’s building this future. Deep down, he knows he’s stalling; the more distance he puts between himself and Leviathan, the easier it is to forget his past, and lose himself in the pleasures of the present.
Skills
I. Spellcasting - Before her untimely death, Avam passed many of her skills down to her son, including her talent with transmutation.
II. Apothecary - Luca is an alchemist, but one of a very specific variety. While he’s familiar with the recipes for the tonics and aromatics one might find in the home of any village healer, his real talent is in distilling ingredients down to their component parts in the pursuit of the pleasurable effects they have on the body.
III. Stealth & Agility - Luca spent his childhood hunted. One won’t find him when he doesn’t wish to be found. He’s able to hold his breath and still his movements for up to a minute and moves comfortably across rooftops.
IV. Appraisal - His passion for art has led to a keen eye and a familiarity with the worth of various goods. He’s played the part of appraiser and pawnbroker many times before.
V. Scrimshaw - A hobby he picked up in his twenties. He’s not the most adept at it, but it keeps his hands occupied.
♦ [STRENGTHS / WEAKNESSES] ♦
Strength / Sphelse - Luca is more resistant to gaseous toxins than other variants of elves - while this is mildly annoying to his purposes, it’s still a boon he wouldn’t give up. He interprets the world through echolocation as much as he does through sight, and can see clearly in complete darkness, as well as detect the shape of objects through obstacles that block his vision. This sensitivity to sound has made his movements almost undetectable.
Strength / Observation - Always cautious, he watches and listens to the people around him and takes good notes. He can guess a number of things about a person just by the way they look, speak, and act, and the ability to remember others’ schedules serves him well when stealth is required.
Strength / Mercantile - He’s had two decades to get over his inborn shyness when it comes to haggling, and his familiarity with the worth of artisanal and illicit goods makes him a formidable opponent in the game of bartering.
Weakness / Sphelse - Though he’s long grown accustomed to the abrasive speaking voices of other races, sudden loud noises and shouts are still painful and disorienting. There’s no growing accustomed to the daylight, however. Exposure to direct light can blind him for up to two hours. With their small size and weakened lifespans, the dark elves are fragile; what bruises another might break Luca’s bones.
Weakness / Combat - He’ll remember a spell or two when cornered and can throw a punch, but Luca’s no warrior. He’d much rather run and hide than stand and fight.
Weakness / Addictions - He’s sampled a wide array of vices, but Luca’s addicted to opium and tobacco. He chain smokes around the clock, but is more conspicuous about his opium use - most who’ve been in close quarters with him will report that he’s quieter than usual towards the end of the day, and mean as a viper if he’s forced to speak. After two days without a fix, his hands tremble and what had been nausea progresses to intense vertigo. He’s incapacitated with pain by day three.
♦ [SPELLBOOK] ♦
Phase - the caster takes on an ethereal aspect for three minutes. During this time, they are rendered transparent and non-corporeal, may pass through solid objects, and are able to move on a vertical as well as horizontal axis, but may not manipulate solid matter that was not on their person before the spell was cast. Luca is able to cast this once every five days.
Telekinesis - the caster gains the ability to manipulate objects without physically touching them. Luca is able to cast this once a day, and it may affect up to four objects weighing a total of 100 lbs. within fifteen feet of his person.
Levitate - the caster is able to move on a vertical axis at halved speed for two minutes. The spell may fail if more weight is added to the caster. Luca is able to cast this twice a day.
Distort - The target of the spell is blurred to the senses for ten minutes, and thinking creatures are compelled to ignore it. This illusion spell may be cast on the self or targeted, and requires the sacrifice of a tiger’s eye gemstone.
Drain - A curse that saps the vitality from the target and feeds it to the caster. Luca is able to cast this three times a day.
Miscellaneous
♦ Alignment - Neutral / Neutral Evil ♦ Goddess - Wheye. Theoretically. ♦ Heart or Mind - Mind ♦ Color - Turquoise ♦ Animal - Magpie ♦ Time of Day - Between 3 and 6 ♦ Season - Summer ♦ Song - No Eyes by Baths
To be reviewed in more depth later, but a first glance-over has this looking really solid.
@MagusDream - Geeze, thank you! C: I was charmed by your characters and styling too, and the song picks slap. Korzan though...I can imagine Luca and Korzan at each other's throats within ten minutes of meeting each other.
@Tortoise - Thank you!! Absolutely no rush on that. I hope things get easier for you soon.
RP is still coming. Planned launch date is now tomorrow.
I had... some kind of seizure, or panic attack, or something yesterday. I don't know exactly what it was. I lost control of my body completely, couldn't stand or hold anything, just thrashing around on the floor. It's not the first time. I don't know if it will impact my ability to write, so my priority is now getting the first post up and kicking things off for y'all.
dude, health comes first! that sounds awful and i hope you've recovered <3
@MagusDream - Geeze, thank you! C: I was charmed by your characters and styling too, and the song picks slap. Korzan though...I can imagine Luca and Korzan at each other's throats within ten minutes of meeting each other.
Awww, thanks! I try to make it as unique as I can, though I hardly reached your levels of CS style.
Korzan has a prejudice against ranged fighters, but the big question is: who exactly Korzan isn't going to pick a fight?
@MagusDream Kurama? She's tiny and won't hurt a fly...unless it's for an experiment.
*imagining something silly*
Knossos: "...No, Miss Kurama, I am not summoning an eldritch beast from beyond, AGAIN, for you to test this latest 'alien monster killer' potion on. The last time you tried the potion caused it to go berserk, and the result cost the locals three sheep, one head of hair, and a perfectly good local inn's roof."
Knossos: "...No, Miss Kurama, I am not summoning an eldritch beast from beyond, AGAIN, for you to test this latest 'alien monster killer' potion on. The last time you tried the potion caused it to go berserk, and the result cost the locals three sheep, one head of hair, and a perfectly good local inn's roof."
In 1 month with the Caravan, Kurama already blew up stuff? Wow @Timemaster, she did not waste any time, huh? Hahahaha!
I hope everyone is enjoying the New Year so far! Sending good vibes to all of you. In the meantime, I began writing a book about Cricket ~ just for fun. What has everyone been up to?
