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 Original Art by Minttu____________________________________________________
C H A R A C T E R I N F O R M A T I O N
Name - Serjo Redoran Velyn Virith.
Gender - Male.
Race - Dunmer.
Age - 39, born 3rd of Sun's Dawn, 3E412.
Height - Average, a few inches under six feet.
Class - Spellsword.
Faction - House Redoran & Buoyant Armigers (former).
Birth Sign - The Lady.
Birth Place - Ald Veloth, Vvardenfell, Morrowind.
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A T T R I B U T E S & S K I L L S
Major - Agility.
Minor - Personality.
Expert - Short Blade.
Adept - Speech, Acrobatics, Light Armour.
Apprentice - Stealth, Destruction, Alteration.
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S P E L L S
Alteration
The Armiger's Path - Water Walking.
Vivec's Kiss - Water Breathing.
St. Seryn's Blessing - Feather.
Shield of the Faithful - Increases Armour Rating.
Destruction
Purifying Flame - Produces a gout of Flame.
Spirit Knife - Damages Health on Touch.
Black Hand - Lingering Poison Damage on Touch.
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E Q U I P M E N T
Weapons
Twinned Steel Wakizashi and Tanto, worn through a sash at the waist.
Armour
Full set of Light Chitin Armour, made in the Dumeri style, much patched and repaired.
Miscellaneous Items
Red Travelling Cloak.
Ragged Dumeri Robes.
Resin Goggles, for Ash storms.
Coin purse, with only a few septims.
Paper Lantern.
Jar of Sujamma, a potent liquor of Morrowind.
Dunmeri Lute, similar to a Shamisen.
Skooma Pipe.
Three Vials of Skooma.
Books and Scrolls, the teachings and poetry of Vivec.
Carved Guar Tooth Amulet, containing Ancestral Ashes.
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A P P E A R A N C E
Velyn Virith is a male Dunmer. The Dunmer age slower than their human counterparts after they reach physical maturity, and hence many still bear a touch of boyish youth, despite having seen three decades or more. With velyn however, several hard years of lean living have taken their toll. The flower of his youth is in its final and failing bloom. He is of an average height, but slender and long limbed, with the lithe musculature of a dancer or acrobat. The comparison is even more apt when you see him in move, his steps are light and quick, his motions fluid and graceful... at least they are when he is sober.
His face is handsome, the features sharp and angular like many of his kind, but not to the point of harshness. The skin is ashen grey, the narrow eyes blood red, between them sits a high aquiline nose that leads to a lightly arched brow. There's something sad about those eyes, when caught unguarded, the look in them verges between desperate hunger and utter despondency. But there's another look they take on too, with increasing regularity these days, the glazed half aware stare of an addict.
Ceremonial Dunmer tattoos mark his face and body. A scarab sigil of the House Redoran sits on his throat and neck, cupping the edge of his stubbled jaw, its inky forelegs peaking out onto the point of his chin. A pattern of waves adorns his left cheek, marking him as one of the Buoyant Armigers, before it curves up from the side of his neck to caress the side of his high wide cheekbone. He wears the Hand of the ALMSIVI Tribunal over his heart, and a depiction of a seated figure, flames about their head, on his back.
When they cast him out from the Temple, he cut his hair free of the topknot its warriors wear. The shorn locks have grown since then and they now hang around his face once more in loose black strands. Through the dark hairs you can make out his pointed ears, from which dangle a few golden rings, several empty holes indicate they were once adorned with many more than are currently on display.
Velyn has few clothes, that which he does own are of fine quality, rich in colour, but poorly maintained and cared for, near threadbare in places, amateurly patched and repaired in others. Around his slender neck hangs a carved pendant or amulet, a hollowed out Guar tooth sealed with resin, containing a fragment of the ashes from the funerary pits of his family's ancestral tomb.
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P E R S O N A L I T Y
What is remains when a person has nothing left to believe in? One of the many answers to that question, is Velyn Virith. Like a ship thrown against the rocks, or a tower built on unstable foundations, he finds himself tumbling down and shattered into a thousand pieces. All that he thought he knew and loved is gone, and in its absence nothing makes sense to him anymore.
From the swirling chaos of his doubt and despair, pieces of who Velyn Virith once was sometimes emerge. He is still exceptionally courteous in his speech, stringing words together like poet, in either Imperial Common or his native Dumeris. He writes little, but some nights he still plays the lute he brought with him when he left Morrowind. In the darkness, he sings to the slow sad music, keening ballads that echo with wails of lost lovers and sundered hearts.
When he fights he is reckless, fighting with no shield, and with his head bare. He often allows his opponents to strike the first blow, a long standing tradition of the honour duels of the Dunmer people, especially of the Redorans. While perhaps a noble sentiment in the honour bound house Velyn hails from, on the battlefield it is a foolhardy tactic, one that will likely end up getting him killed one day. He does not seem to care.
He still says that he wishes to fight for what is good and noble, that he cares about protecting the common people, and living up to the ideals of his faith. But there is no passion to those words, they are learned by rote. To Velyn, gallantry is a routine, he does it because he does not know what else to do.
Velyn is not unfriendly, but neither does he pursue any form of closeness to the other misfits and outcasts he finds himself associated with in Anvil. If approached at one of the squalid dives he most often frequents, he is companionable enough, if not for the somewhat bitter edge to what passes as his humour. He still laughs at lot, frequently at himself, but not in a pleasant way. There's something harsh about it, as if he considers himself the butt of some great and terrible joke. He drinks too much, but no avail. The only time his spirits truly seem to lift is when the sweet smelling smoke of Skooma lingers on his threadbare clothes. Those nights he does not play or sing, he prefers to lie insensate, and dream of times long gone.
In truth the emotion he most commonly seems to elicit in others is a mixture of pity and disgust. Pity because who does not know the feelings of loss and heartbreak. Disgust because Velyn seems to have given himself over to wallowing in such feelings.
All of his pain, all of his loss, his doubt, his yearning, his love, and his grief can be found in one word, one name, one letter written in uncertainty.
Vivec.
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Velyn Virith was born on Vvardenfell on the third day of Sun's Dawn in the four hundred and twelfth year of the Third Era. He was the son of Theldyn Virith, Kinsman to the Great House Redoran, Hetman of the fishing port of Ald Velothi. Most of Velyn's childhood was spent between the Redoran district capital of Auld'ruhn and his family's ancestral estates in the West Gast. Like his brothers and cousins, he was bonded to his house from birth, and was expected to follow in his father's footsteps as another proud Redoran warrior, but fate had other plans for Velyn Virith.
He couldn't have been more than five, perhaps six, when the course of his life was irrevocably changed. His father had business with a clan of fellow Redoran nobles, the Saren clan of the city of Vivec, and he brought young Velyn with him on the long journey down to the greatest city on Vvardenfell. While his father conducted his business, he left young Velyn with a retainer to show the young boy the sights of the city.
It happened the second morning they were there, as he passed over one of the high bridges that linked the upper plazas of the cantons. A crowd had come out to line the waterways, and being a curious young child, Velyn pushed his way through to the railings to witness the cause of the excitement.
A regatta was being held on the grand canal. Barges of beaten gold, wreathed with floral garlands, floated upon the shimmering waters. The oars of each barge were manned by a host beautiful maidens and comely youths. Groups of troubadours and musicians filled the air with the sound of lutes, and pipes, and drums. From the gilded decks, knights clad in iridescent glass laughed and sang as they threw roses to the adorning crowds. And there, hovering above them all, a seated figure, half gold, smiling, and radiating the light of Heaven itself.
This was the first time Velyn saw a God. He vowed that day that it would not be the last.
He would not forget what he saw that day. On the long journey by strider back to their home it was all he could think about. He wanted to live in that light, and bathe himself in its warmth. The Redorans were one of the more pious of the Dunmer Great Houses, but even amongst them, Velyn's single minded dedication to the faith and in particular to Lord Vivec, struck many of his kinsmen as being unusual.
As soon as he was old enough he pledged himself as novice to the Temple, the first step in what he thought would be a lifetime spent in that glorious light. Once he had proved himself in feats of arms, exhibitions of arts, and generosity of alms, Velyn was apprenticed into the Buoyant Armigers. That order of iridescent knights he had glimpsed upon those gilded barges many years ago.
But the he order in found himself in was somewhat different from how he had imagined it. In those days the fear of the Sharmat hung over Vvardenfell, and recently the ALMSIVI had receded from the outside world. Rather than spending his time at the side of the Lord he had adored from far, Velyn was dispatched to the fortress of Molag Mar in the magma strewn wastes of Molag Amur. There he began his work as an Armiger, hunting down the blight of the Sharmat, slaying Sixth House Cultist and Corpus Monsters.
That was the year that the Nerevarine returned, and by his hand, the fall of the Dagoth Ur. There was upheaval in the wake on St. Nerevar's return, the amnesty on the Dissident priests, the events in Mournhold where it was rumoured that the Tribunes Sotha Sil and Almalexia were both slain. To many it was a time of uncertainty and fear. But to Velyn those few years were glorious.
Vvardenfell was freed from the threat of the Sharmat and his monsters, and Velyn's Lord was freed from his ancient duty of maintaining the Ghost Fence. For those precious few years Velyn bathed in the light of his Lord. There was time for music and poetry in those years. There was time for dancing, and nights where they would join their Lord in rituals that had been long neglected. It was in those years that Velyn learned the secrets of carnal exultation, it was everything Velyn had ever dreamed of.
And then it was over.
It was when the Gates of Oblivion opened that everything began to go wrong. Portals opened up across Morrowind, and Tamriel beyond. The Imperials sat behind the walls of their fortresses, on the mainland some even marched back through the passes of the Velothi Mountains to defend Cyrodil while Morrowind burned. The Armigers were dispatched to keep the city of Vivec safe from Daedric incursions. The city held, but elsewhere the situation was dire.
In Ald'ruhn, where Velyn had spent much of his childhood, where he had first served as a temple novice, the fighting was the worst. The city was practically destroyed, its defenders going so far as to resurrect the great Emperor Crab Skar, demolishing the council halls and manors of their most powerful citizens in the process. Once the city of Vivec was secure Velyn had fought his way north to meet up with a Redoran army from the mainland. But they too late. By the time they arrived there was little left by corpses and rubble.
Theldyn Virith, his father, was among the dead. Velyn was left to burn his body and make sure his ashes were interred with his ancestors.
In all this madness there was no sign of Lord Vivec, the Living God had disappeared around the time the Crisis. There was no sign of the Nerevarine either, who it was rumoured had travelled to the continent of Akavir. The people of Morrowind did their best to pick up the pieces, and rebuild their shattered lives and cities, Velyn was amongst them. For though their Lord had disappeared, though his father was dead, Velyn had the support of the Temple and of his sworn brothers. That was enough.
Besides, Velyn could not forget what it meant to see a God in all their glory. He never would. So he kept his faith, as best he could.
Those were trying years for Morrowind, there was fighting amongst the houses as the Hlaalu lost their place of preeminent and were expelled from the Grand Council. Imperial authority collapsed with the lack of an Emperor on the throne. While the Dunmer simultaneously tried to rebuild and fought amongst themselves, an even greater threat loomed. One that had been hanging over them for a long time.
Baar Dau, the Ministry of Truth, Lie Rock. It had floated above the City of Vivec for millennia, suspended there by the Living God himself and held in place by his power and the faith of people who lived beneath. But it appeared the Crisis, the deaths of the Tribunes, and the disappearance of the God had weakened that faith. In truth, those years were first where Velyn felt his own waver. Sometimes at night he wonders if he too is partly to blame for what happened when Baar Dau fell.
He had not been in the city. If he had, he would not be here today. The Palace and High Fane were directly beneath the impact, none who were there survived. Instead Velyn was at the Armiger's fortress at Molag Mar. All they saw was a burning light on the horizon, a terrible shaking in the ground, and the roaring hot winds of the blast wave when it finally reached them. The mountain had answered that terrible roar with its own, raining down ash and fire, filling the Foyadas with lava and trapping them in their stronghold.
When boats from the mainland finally reached them he had tried to go to the city to search for survivors. They had told him there was no point, the city was gone and waters where it had once stood boiled. They call it Scathing Bay now. He had thought then to try to reach Ghostgate, to find the other chapter of their order, but that fortress had sat upon the Foyada Mamaea, and had been incinerated in the eruption. So, with no other option, he had gone to the mainland.
It was a good thing that he had, for soon the mainland would have need of every warrior Morrowind could provide. In the moment of their greatest ever weakness the Argonians invaded. The lizard men sacked every city they came upon, even as the ash and fire rained down still. No where was spared, not even Mournhold, a holy city of the Tribunal and the capital of all Morrowind. The jewel of their province which had somehow miraculously escaped the ravages of the Red Year was reduced to another smoking ruin.
That's what Morrowind was those days, a land of smoking ruins, refugees, warfare, and death.
And somehow, Velyn kept his faith.
He fought with his sworn brothers, with his fellow Redorans, with anyone who would defend Morrowind. Perhaps that's what allowed him to keep his faith, he had no time to think about what was happening around him, he was too busy trying to survive. So went on as he always had done, being an Armiger, doing his deeds of Love and War in the name of his Lord, Vivec.
The war was terrible and it was long. The Argonians made it as far East and North as Port Telvannis, they even made it onto Vvardenfell itself. Their armies fell most heavily on the Dres and the Telvannis, but no where was truly safe from their wrath. Over the years more and more of his brothers fell, but the Redoran led armies slowly routed the Argonian warbands from much of their lands. Mournhold was recovered, even if it was a ruin, and new fortified borders and lines of defence were drawn up between these two new independent powers.
Suddenly there wasn't anymore fighting to be done. So Velyn went back to the Temple. Only to find there was no Temple for him to go back to.
While he had been away at the front, the balance of power in the Temple had changed dramatically. With the loss of the traditional centres of orthodox Temple power, Vivec and Mournhold, there were new Archcanons at the head of the faith, and they had very different ideas about the status of the Old Tribunal. The Dissident Priests and the New Temple, as it later came to be called, had emerged triumphant from the rubble of their nation and they decried Vivec as a false god.
He should have just accepted it. The evidence was plain enough, Vivec had not protected them, and he was gone. But Velyn couldn't forget. He couldn't forget what it was to see a God in the flesh. To see the light of Heaven itself. To touch it.
Velyn kept his faith. And won himself exile for it.
Spurned from the homeland he had fought for, he fled to Cyrodil, following in the footsteps of countless Dunmer refugees across the Velothi Mountains. He found a province in chaos, another war unfolding just as he felt the last one behind. The Stormcrown Interregnum. He sold his sword to the highest bidders, fell in with low company, common mercenaries and murderous thugs, or worse. But above all else Velyn tried to keep moving, always heading west, away from the past that was lost to him.
Until one day there was no further west to go, and the other war he had searched for some meaning in was also done. A new emperor sat upon the throne, and an uneasy peace returned to the Imperial Province. Velyn found himself in Anvil, with nowhere left to go, and nothing to distract him the gaping hole in his soul.
Bereft of his Lord, his Land, and his Love, it was only then that Velyn finally broke.
He spent what coin he had earned on idle pleasures of the flesh, trying to drown in his sorrows in drink and in the warm embrace of lovers. In the end he found one thing that took away the pain he left with every waking moment of his existence. Skooma.
For the last year or so Velyn has lived as an addict, selling his sword to buy a fix, playing his lute in the low dockside taverns and dives for spare septims when he can't find other work. He's a familiar enough sight around the rougher parts of the city, and an associate of paupers, beggars, criminals and other outcasts. Though there are very few in Anvil who know much of his true past, of the mer he used to be.
Velyn is just another strange piece of flotsam, washed up on the western shores of Cyrodil.
Shattered from the storm that tossed it there.
