BreathOfTheWoof

The Hourglass Order

Zarra Travendour

Zarra Travendour

"Being normal is so overrated, to be normal means to never achieve, never evolve. I would rather fade away right now then ever be normal."

16 | Male | Perrench | Noble | 7.73

P E R S O N A L I T Y

❖ Extroverted: Zarra is not afraid to approach others, engage in social activities, enterprise a team activity, and be part of the spotlight.
❖ Deadpan: He loves poke fun at others, himself, and the situation. He knows how to be relatable to a primal level, and he can and will find ways break tensions with a well placed quip.
❖ Headstrong: Absolutely refuses to be seen as a lesser, and competes with others on all fronts. He also refuses to be told what destiny is, and detests those who would threaten any freedom him or his peers have.
❖ Unphasable: Zarra is nearly incapable to anger or sadden, unless under extreme circumstances. He actively changes the intimidation of others and sees himself as a paragon of anti-social engineering.
❖ Imaginative: He's addicted experimenting and do things nobody has yet to try. He hopes to progress the applications of magics beyond what the close-minded nobles default to.

L A N G U A G E S

Avincian & Perrench

C H A R A C T E R A P P E A R A N C E

Zarra is 5' 7 (1.7m), weighs about 120 pounds (54 kg), has dirty blonde hair, and visibly violet eyes, a byproduct of his heritage. A tradition in his family is to have a thunderbolt tattoo across parts of their body, Xara's on his chest, not visible unless wearing thin clothing or shirtless.

T H E G I F T

His gift is excelling in defensive magics, shields, walls, and artificial equipment are some of the things he's capable of providing. What makes him standout is that Xara is capable of turning that pure defense into unbridled offense, when given an apt opportunity, through combinations of binding, magnetic, and kinetic magics.

B A C K G R O U N D

Zarra was born into the Travendour family, a relatively low-laying noble family of Thunderchildren. However, after his discovery of being a Grayborn, they quickly realize their son will likely not outlive most of his elder family. As to compensate for their son's disfortune, they put all their extra assets into his education, as such, he was let into only the most prodigious of Perrench schools.

There, he quickly blossomed. He found fun in the process, choosing to always shoot for the highest marks, never failing any of his classes, and especially determined to be the top percentile of his class. Despite all attempts at bullying, he's saw it as an opportunity to break the social meta, verbal abuse is simply just another game to win.

M O T I V A T I O N

He simply wants to prove that he can change the future in the little time that he's been given. He also wishes to journal all his achievements as to preserve what he's gathered. Despite coming off as such, Zarra is not inherently ambitious, instead choosing to adapt to the status quo rather than set his own. He's also learned that trust is a double-edged sword to be wielded with foresight, and attempts to establish it on all occasions.

I N V E N T O R Y

Art, sigil and calligraphy kits
A plethora of empty tomes
Custom utility belt to hold said tomes
Clothes, obviously
Some fake jewelry including bracelets, rings and collars.

S T R E N G T H S & S K I L L S

❖ Problem-solving: Zarra doesn't view the world in can and can'ts, Only issues of complexity. The harder the problem, the more time he puts into a solution.
❖ Surgeon's Hands: Zarra can draw, write, and sleight of hand with consistent accuracy and skill. If you need something that requires fine motor skill, he's your man.
❖ Elusive: He uses Greyborn background as a gift more than a curse, he's not against running through walls, phasing into the ground, or stalking his enemy.
❖ Friend to All: Due to his outgoing personality, Zarra finds himself extremely intune with animals, even to normally aggressive ones.

W E A K N E S S E S & F L A W S

❖ Hollow: Despite all the achievements that Zarra has behind his back, he always this self-doubt that he isn't good enough, that he hasn't earned what he's given. He often feels lost and that his work will be for nothing.
❖ Invulnerable: Zarra is not an empathetic person by any means, while he can maintain a sense of casualty, loyalty, and security, he often won't see the point of tact and instead play the antagonist
❖ Unscrupulous: in Zarra's mindset, advantage is all that matters. Manipulating friends, enemy, situations, it's all fair game to him.
❖ Marked: As a consequence of his very out there personality, other nobles see him as impossible or even dangerous. He has to be cautious as to not make hang himself with his own rope.
❖ Frail: Due to Zarra's weak physical stature and years of standing up to the bigger man, Zarra bruises easily and has a low pain tolerance, one solid shot will likely take him out of commission, if not stun him beyond expectation

Word association Game!

Landlords

-Ominous- (Villainous Marvel RP)

I'm thinking that during the snap, a normal human who ends up developing a skillset similar to Magneto, being able to control magnetic fields to some extent, but uses it more creatively. Things like wearing plate armor so that he can vibrate it, allowing it as essentially kinetic dampening or using the fields to create static electricity.

Fire Emblem: Sunken Flames

Xara Travendour & Ashley

Unfortunately, Xara was one of the mentioned injured. After his failed attempt to shoot through the porthole, he was left with cracked hips and a nasty case of whiplash. Healing magic fortunately works on such trivial internal wounds, but the soreness doesn’t go away right away. He can still walk, but it hurts to do so and often Xara has to rely on a makeshift cane Tedreus supplied him. He’ll hopefully be better before they land into combat, or his one defensive benefactor, his mobility, will be left completely null. Because of his unwillingness to move or stand, Xara has been mostly sitting, listening to the conversations of the others.

Xara was deeply fascinated with the mist, and he takes special note of Kathila mentioning that going over and under doesn’t seem to work. Xara tries to reason what probably hasn’t been tried, after all, if there was a person who could figure that out, it was him. He wonders if sea water is what stops it, as after all, it doesn’t seem to spread past the coast line, but how on earth are they gonna use that to fight it off? If it is the solution, it’ll definitely require some shenanigans to pull off. What about dark magic? That lady is a gremory, after all, it is unlikely she knows those kinds of magic, unless she’s one of the few who can access it, but she really doesn’t want to confront her on it, he’s hurt already and she may just get mad he essentially asked her if she was a witch. After all, he knows one already. Xara stands up, hand on his side, going up to Ashley.
“Hey, can I talk to you in private? It’s about something personal”

Ashley gave Xara the side-eye, but nodded almost imperceptibly. ”Right, let us ignore the well of wisdom before us and turn aside to foolishness first,” she remarked out loud, her words as dry as the group’s collective wisdom in that moment. ”There remains, after all, some merit to the process of elimination,” she said as she gave Troe’s missing finger a meaningful look. ”We’ll be back, I’m sure.” Excusing herself from Kathila with another curtsy, she motioned for the group to follow her as she began leading them along the coast, remaining silent until she could be reasonably sure she was out of earshot of Kathila.

Xara leans against the cane, trying to keep casual, but seems to be struggling a little bit against the tidal sand. “So what if we try using dark magic on it? Or even a curse? Surely nobody of your skill has tried yet-” Xara is interrupted by Ashley, as if she knew how he was going to finish his sentence. He doesn’t like that, he doesn’t like being predictable.

”I’ve told you before,” she began sternly. ”I don’t—do—curses. ...If you were hoping for a miracle, you should know that a witch is generally considered a poor consultant for that line of work,” she helpfully informed Xara, her irritation fueled by many ill-informed requests in the past. ”When working with dark magic, I find it imprudent to feed it more, until I know what I’m dealing with. In other words, what’s fueling these flames? I ought to know at least that much before I go tossing whatever I please into it.”

Xara sighs as he realizes that they’re now at an impasse. “Runes, sorry. Anyway, how do we find that out when we can’t get near it? The only thing that makes sense is the ground itself, but how do we gain a sample? Kathila said magic and flesh burns in the mist. Maybe we can try a contraption of some kind that won’t burn?... It’s deeply unlikely, but it’s not like we have anything else to try.” Xara wonders if maybe the mist only burns living things, and if there’s a possibility it fills the entire inland, and not just what the mist let’s them see.

Ashley would have been lying if she’d said she wasn’t the least bit curious what would happen if she stuck her Devil Sword into the mist, but her apprehension outweighed her curiosity. ”Well, I don’t know what sort of dark magic you’re familiar with, but the sort I’ve used is fueled by such things as emotions and memories. Use it too much, and you’ll be left an empty husk. It can do worse things than deal death; our friend Troe is lucky to be merely missing his finger, and not feel it burning constantly,” Ashley cautioned, looking at Troe rather than Xara. ”We’re better served staying away from this sort of thing. Frankly, I’m uncomfortably close as it is.”

The young mage looks utterly baffled by Ashley’s words. How can she be so skilled if she can never even use her own magic? It contradicts his personal magical experience, dark magic continues to be an entirely untouchable beast to him, it never follows basic rules like anima or light magic. What does she mean anyway? Does it burn away her emotions and memories? That sounds like a horrible drawback, possibly losing the very knowledge you need to understand what you’re doing. “Well, then what are we supposed to do? Go home with news of dead crewman? It seems like such a huge waste of effort to not try, even if we don’t understand how to win this situation.” As the gremory in training proceeds to look disappointed, Xara’s cane finally slips, causing him to collapse on his side and give him a shooting pain that he would enjoy never feeling again. He is now slightly wet, but that’s the least of his concerns right now as forced himself upright with all his effort.

Ashley pulled Xara up by his collar with a firm hand. ”Believe me, no one is more unhappy than I about being useless in this situation. My best guess is that someone hated this island and wanted it destroyed, which, despite the different connotation that takes given the nature of dark magic, is not very useful information. Even if this patch of dirt out in the middle of the ocean was the object of someone’s obsession—if it had a dark and sordid history that was offered up as a sacrifice of some kind, that still leaves a who and a why,” she said, once again looking at Troe.

Xara, not really having much else to say, wobbles deeper into the water to stare at the endless sea, not annoyed, just left solemn. This was his big chance to prove himself useful intellectually to Ashley after his very bad first impression with her, once again she knows exactly what to say to shut him down. He can’t help but stare at the ground with a blank look on his face as the word “miracle” echoes inside his head louder than his body aches. All he can do is introspect and obsess over what information is missing.

Fire Emblem: Sunken Flames

Xara Travendour

As Xara entered the boat, he could see the absolute fury in Ashley's face. She spent easily 5 minutes tirading him. About how they're on a mission and that it's irresponsible and they should've let him, all this time Xara pretty much mentally shuts her out and acknowledges her with a combination of hums and nods. He has better things to do then be treated like he's 8, like change his now dirty clothes.

Xara was the first to jump to Troe's research regarding the strange deadzone. He ultimately believes whatever is causing this strange interference is magic related. He tries all sorts of experiments to test for such a hypothesis, but nothing seemed to work, everyone's magic is working, tomes aren't reacting to anything. What could it be? This mystery bothers him to no end and he'll absolutely come back here one day to figure out this anomaly.

Naturally curious, Xara was one of the first to watch the ships approach, but his curiousity quickly turned to apprehension, as he makes out a surprising amount of people on the upperdeck. He mutters outloud, "Uh, Ashley?" As he says this, he makes out that those people are carrying, bows?! "NOPE!" He's the first to bolt to cover, hiding behind the sail's mast.​ As he soon as he runs, the archers release their wave of arrows, and everyone else proceeds to panic and follow in his lead. He watches the ships quickly approach and use make shift ladders to board. He bolts and practically jumps down the steps and out of the way of the stampede, running to the other side of the inner boat. Seconds after everyone else enters, he hears someone fall down the stairs, as well as a loud scream and his companions yelling amongst each other.

He closes his eyes and breathes. Be the stone among the pillars of sand. What do we know about the situation? One of them is injured, Aleria will be busy. Mik, Tonka and Kav will likely be defending the latch, and Samara is probably still sea sick. That leaves potentially Margot, Troe, Ashley, and Tedreus.

He looks for tactical means. It's likely the invaders have already boarded, making hatch escape nigh impossible. The port holes could work, but they're too small for everyone. Well, everyone except for him. What would that accomplish though? Fire would take too long, ice wouldn't do jack, and his wind likely couldn't break through the hull. What about his Bolting tome? He'd need direct line of sight for it to be any good. And where would he hit? What about the bridges? They're a critical part of the pirates' strategy... How is he gonna reach them though? Through all the chaos around him, Xara gets an idea.

Pushing through the crowd, Xara takes Troe by the hand and brings him to the closest porthole. "I know this sounds crazy, but I want you to launch me straight up into the air, as high as you can get me. You're a dedicated wind mage, right? Well this is your chance to prove it." Troe eyes Xara trying to fit through the porthole, it's an incredible squeeze, even for him. But he manages it, trying not to look down at the endless water below. He firts gets seated and then stands up. "I promise this is a good idea!"

Troe launches Xara, and as he does so, the world slows down around him, he passes the upper deck, and he sees the first bridge, currently ignoring the extra stimulus like the other boat currently exploding. As he reaches past the crow's nest, he sees the other boat board as well. With expert speed, Xara activated his tome and points at both bridges. "SNIPE!" 2 large thunderbolts from nowhere appear from the sky and strike both bridges. They explode into thousands of pieces as the raiders are now falling in the water or unlucky enough to be struck by the blasts themselves. All of the chaos that ensues means nothing to him as he prepares his wind tome, falling at an increasing rate, he passes the upper deck, his adrenaline pumping. If there's a time trust himself, it's now. As he sees the portholes get closer and closer, he activates a spell. He uses the same spell he used in the tavern and on Kavius, he slows his momentum a bit as it stops all together for a hair of a second. He stretches his arms forward like an olympic diver and shoots himself into the open porthole. He's lucky he makes the narrow hole, but is stopped midlaunch has his hips strike the sides of said window, knocking the wind out of him and leaving him with sudden pain in his lower body. He immediately feels like an oaf as he's now struggling, stuck there with his legs and butt sticking out for easy archer fodder.

Fire Emblem: Sunken Flames

Xara Travendour

It would be many hours before Xara would be seen. After watching Kavius get chased around by a bunch of random girls, he decided to head back and tell one of the crew that he has the supplies for the boat upgrades. After that, he caught sight of the angry mob again. Having felt a little bad that he didn't save Kav earlier, he decided to do something about it. He hides behind a nearby building corner, and with a little bit of aiming and a wind check, Xara shoots a big fireball into the water nearby. The resulting reaction of the impact causes the fireball to explode and soak every single of the mobsters. They all shout in disarray and one even trips in panic and lands in the water. It took all of Xara's constitution to not laugh out loud and give away his location, all he could do is giggle endlessly. Not quite done with them yet, he watches as all of them disperse.

He follows the first girl to a nearby stables. As she goes inside, he puts on his first act.
"Crap crap cRAP! My wife is gonna kill me!"
Being curious and self-righteous, confronts him about his issue, hoping to be the hero.
"What's wrong sir?" She feigns concern.
"I lost my wedding ring, and I swear I left it here!" Her eyes light up, she could use a new ring.
"If you help me find it that'd be great!"
She decides to go along with it. Xara proceeds to start digging around near where a horse drawn carriage is. She starts to dig around as well.
"Do you see it yet?"
"No, not really." She says with false innocence. Things quickly escalate as she crawls underneath the carriage to find the jewelry, and suddenly she feels her leg go cold. She turns to see... Her leg is frozen to the bottom of the cart! She wonders in confusion as Xara quickly goes to the opposite side. "Hey, what are you doing?!" Xara grabs her arms and freezes them as well, kneeling down to see her short blond hair getting dirty, an unrivaled scowl on her face. He snaps back, "Next time, don't accuse people of harassment for no reason." She quickly realizes what he means, and can only yell angrily as Xara goes to the back of the cart, and kicks the block, causing it to slowly start rolling down the hill, it starts going faster, and faster, and Xara sadistically watches as the cart starts rocketing down the hill and into a pile of manure below. He glimpses her fate as he makes his escape.

He continues his search, he sees the most athletic girl of their little posse, all alone doing her stretches. and he quickly goes inside a store and spends a little bit of gold on measuring supplies, like a rope and a compass. As she's doing her exercises, Xara proceeds to act frustrated and annoyed, pacing back and forth with the objects. He makes a bunch of squares around a tree, pretending he's doing something important. He eventually comes up to the girl. "Excuse me, can you help me? I'm a surveyor, and I need to know how tall that tree is, but my hired help didn't arrive. Would you be willing to fill in? I just need someone to climb the branches real fast. I'm willing to pay you."
"Uh... Sure?" She's a little suspicious of this guy, but this is her favorite spot to work out and she hates anyone being nearby, hopefully this will get rid of him.
She climbs the tree with rope in hand, showing off a bit, might as well have fun, right?
"Ok, right there."
She has her back to him as she reaches about halfway up the tree. Suddenly, she feels something hit her from behind, she catch the tree, trying to save herself. She looks down to see her entire torso and her long brunette pgtails are frozen to the tree.
"What the!? Hey! You'll pay for this!"
"I bet that's what you said to that guy you tried to mob too."
She can only growl as Xara runs for it, taking the rope with him, it'd be a waste otherwise.

His next victim would be going to an outhouse in a remote campsite. She sits on the toilet, thinking about her day. It was so rude of Gary to talk to Maddie like that, if only she had the confidence to confront him. As she daydreams and plays with her long ginger hair, Xara runs up and freezes the door on her. She recognizes the spell chant and tries to open the door, but it's now jammed, and her panicking doesn't help. As she realizes what the heck happened and starts to cry, he swaps the woman's and men's signs on the outhouses, hoping someone will come by and discover her in the supposedly wrong bathroom. "The guy who you chased today, sends his regards." He walks away, skipping happily a bit.

After many other misadventures, it's nearly sundown by the time Xara is back. He looks a little beat up from the battle with Kav, as well as some other things. Tedreus soon hears rumors of woman being frozen to various ridiculous places, including to the branches of trees, in men's bathrooms, and even underneath a horse carriage. He wonders what kind of madman would do such a ridiculous crime, but he quickly connects the dots, and he stops Xara when he tries to get on the boat.

"Hold it right there! Do you have anything to do with the mysterious pranks happening to a bunch of woman? Don't lie to me."
"Yah, I did."
Tedreus is flabberghasted by this confession, he atleast expected some banter, he always wanted to go full Felix Ryte, a legendary lawman of Faroth-En.
"But- why?"
"They accused an innocent of being sexually inappropriate, they deserved the embarrassment."
"How in Siren's name did you get them in trees and shit?"
"You'd be surprised what woman will do if you ask carefully. The carriage girl? I asked her to help me find my wedding ring. The tree girl? I pretended to be a surveyor and that my hired help didn't show."
"Well I'll be-"
"Now, to be fair, I did bring you parts. Surely you can let this slide, after all, surely you've probably been accused of worse."
"Haughty words, but you impress me with your accuracy. I wasn't gonna say anything regardless, you really know how to work favors, don't ye?"
"Apparently."

Xara proceeds inside the boat, feeling smugger than ever.

Fire Emblem: Sunken Flames

Xara Travendour

Kavius' stone accidentally lands directly in the path of one of Xara's spells, causing it to get launched into the window of a nearby building. Xara sees all of this happen and winces at the noise. The abandoned house then collapses, completely destroyed by the mage's systematic attacks.

"Are you sure that's a good idea? We could accidentally destroy the materials; something tells me that's not gonna change your mind..."

Putting his hand instinctly on one of the 4 tomes strapped to his side, he proceeds to walk in arc, staring at Kavius until he's a better position.
"Alright, let's do this..."

Xara whispers to himself, which proceeds to make a shield and hand axe of pure ice, quickly showing Kavius that Xara isn't a run of the mill spellslinger type.

Fire Emblem: Sunken Flames

Xara Travendour

Xara had this idea in his head that it was gonna be like he wasn't even there. Despite being the one to organize the whole travel arrangement, he ultimately decided to stick to his books than handle the new environment at all. He occasionally made small talk, doing a rare "Hey" to one of the crewman he recognized or making unimportant dialogue to Ted. He was surprisingly prepared, his books were all wrapped in waterproof leathers, and he had means of writing with him at all times. Being an extremely visual learning person, Xara's notes would often consistent of diagrams or data graphs, he's a surprisingly good artist, having years to practice his penmanship. However, his curious mind grew bored of sitting around reading his own crazy magic theories. He started wandering the ship, making notes of structural integrities and potential issues. But even this didn't fill the gap, he begrudgingly admitted he couldn't hermit out anymore and that he'll have to talk to someone. He tried out Ashley first, having the most compulsion to hear what she knew. He didn't regret it either, she clearly had expertise in the topic. "What about in the rare occasion in that they have to reverse their own curse? Isn't it unnecessarily risky to accidently curse yourself?"

He decided to bother Troe next, being the only person who actually talked to him prior to the trip and being a clear scholar himself. "Listen, I know you're busy tutoring fighter girl, but do you happen to have any knowledge you can pass down to a much more advanced caster?" He says that with clear implication that he means himself. After all, the kid saw him saw a table in half. Imagine what that could do to a real target.

He finally decided to investigate Aleria, he reminds her very similarly of an old healer girl he knew as a kid, unfortunately it's not her, she had red hair, this one is blonde.
"I'm going to assume by your attire that you're fullblooded cleric? Does your magic work on plants at all? You see.."
Xara pulls out a musty old jar with algae inside
"I'm trying to make a potion, but this algae seems to be sickly, and I didn't bring a way to put it in clean freshwater. would you possibly be able to heal it? I know it's a super odd request, but it's also just because I want to know if it's possible without risking killing it"

As they reach the docks, Xara quickly wanders off on his own, far away from the tourists attractions, just like choosing his 3 selective friends, if he can call them that, he always has an idea in his head on the spot and rarely gives care to common distractions that could attract less composed psyches, such as Margot. He thinks that girl is walking trouble, but he's not sure, it's just his intuition.

After plenty hours of wondering, he finds some less than stellar buildings, run down, abandoned, and pushed to the side for the flashy stuff near the shore. He quickly pulls wind tome and starts to systematically destroy the house for resources. Who's gonna stop him, the owner? Ted will definitely appreciate the ship parts it can provide.

Fire Emblem: Sunken Flames

Xara Travendour

Xara watches from the edge of the group, he doesn't like being so close to others, physically contact was also out of the question. He wasn't a germaphobe by any means, but growing up in way that never normalized contact with others has left him feeling uncomfortable about to this day.
He strategically decided to introduce later, and he's happy he did so. With his father a disgraced General, he often just sees it as easier to lie about his heritage to strangers, rather than deal with the ramifications. Not here though, Ashley herself will point out that his family name isn't real.

Speaking of her, her introduction was the only one he didn't mentally shut out. {She reverses curses? Maybe I could learn a thing or too from her during our trip...}
After some awkward silence, he decides to break it hismelf.
"Hello everyone, I'm glad you all got my message. You may know me as Table Hopper, but my real name is Xara Travendour. Yes, that Travendour. Anyway, let's all pray we don't drown on our way there, ok?"
Xara says that last sentence with a gleeful irony. He even winks and raises 2 fingers in a V shape. In all honestly he couldn't really care what backgrounds everyone has as long as it sparked his curiosity, but he feels the need to front his fun casual attitude anyway.

Fire Emblem: Sunken Flames

Xara Travendour

As the following passes by the remaining crew, some of them pass with large crates of fish. for the group it becomes apparent what the nasty smell was coming from. Xara and Tedreus are both visibly confused as everyone, including Ashley and Mikhail, were boarding. While it helps alleviate most of the stench, the ship still has a residual odor of fish and grunge.
Tedreus interjects, "Thought you said just that one guy. Not that I mind, more hands on deck."
Xara just shrugs and accepts the serendipity, apparently his offer did work after all...?
Ted spots Aleria and eyes go wide. "Woah, it's as if an angel fell from earth." He'd make an advance if he weren't a married man.
Xara inquisitively asks Troe, the only familiar face in the group. "So like, are they all with you? Cause holy crap, you must be a popular guy!"
He then turns to Margot, not really waiting for the wind mage to even respond.
"By the way, there's so such illness, hormones have nothing to do with casting." He says this straight faced, not aware that calling someone out like that in front of others can be seen as antagonistic.