Centimane — Roleplayer Guild

Character description 
Put simply, Shikoba Athanasi looks really, really old. He is a tiny man, hunched with age. Standing only 4’10”, he might weigh as much as 7 stone when wet (i.e. rather less than 100 lbs.). His skin is rough and leathery – the phrase “even his wrinkles have wrinkles” goes a long way to describing it – giving every indication of his having lived an extraordinarily long time as a hermit in the wilds of the North. His eyes, which are usually half-hidden underneath heavy and aged lids, are such a dark brown as to be almost black and his gaze, which is nearly always calm and implacable, is what many would describe as “fathomless”. His hair, which he usually manages to keep both reasonably clean and short, is as white as new-fallen snow.

Shikoba Athanasi wears the simple, unadorned linen breeches and woolen robes and coif of a tribal holy man and hermit, and usually wraps himself in a goat’s hair cloak for protection against the bitter northern cold.

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【Full Name】
Iakov Bogumil
 
【Alias】
The Old Sage on the Mountain, Shikoba Athanasi (a title meaning "Father Immortal" or "Old Man Deathless")
 
【Gender】
Male
 
【Age】
108
(yep, you read that right...)
 
【Sexuality】
At his age, irrelevant...

【Birth Place】
Salinae, a tiny and long-vanished tribal village lying between Boulder Town and Titus

【Nation/Allegiance】
The Six Tribes of the North

【Profession】
 Holy Man/Hermit
 
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【Personality】
 
Shikoba Athanasi is usually a reserved, quiet, and contemplative individual. He’s humble and has a peaceful and easygoing demeanor, but is also very driven and disciplined in his own quiet way. Shikoba is also very prone to stillness, whether standing or sitting, and is not prone to moving quickly unless it is truly necessary, a trait that frequently frustrates younger or simply less patient individuals. 

To say that Shikoba Athanasi is always calm is like saying that a mountain knows how to stand still. The ancient holy man is far too old, has seen far too much, and is far too certain of his convictions concerning the old gods and his fate when he finally goes to meet them – which will, in all likelihood, be quite soon – for him to get emotionally worked up about much (or anything, really). Shikoba exudes a quiet, easy confidence and a contentment with his circumstances that can be at times inspiring, and at other times infuriating for the (always much younger) people around him. 

Though he is normally easygoing and calm, Shikoba can also be implacable and stern, and is capable of fixing others with a gaze of such piercing, fathomless intensity that few can withstand it for long. Having spent more than twice as many decades as a teacher and mentor than most other men have lived period, he can also take on a natural air of authority and competence when he feels the need. At most times, however, he plays the part of the shuffling, good-natured old man, and lets the young’uns steal all the attention and do all the talking. The events of the past seven weeks have left their mark on him however, and his good-natured demeanor has taken on a harder and stiffer edge than normal.
 
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【History】
Shikoba Athanasi – which is a title meaning “Father Immortal” or “Old Man Deathless” – has been living among the far northern peaks of the Icy Spine for longer than anyone, whether of Vasili or of the six tribes, can recall with certainty. There are a handful of geezers and grandmothers among the tribes, all quite ancient themselves and mostly senile now, who claim to recall that when they were small children he was known as “Iakov Bogumil” and that he was still a young man of only 2 or 3 decades, but no one living can speak of his life before the age of around 40 years with any real assurance. Even today the name of Shikoba Athanasi is largely unknown within the Kingdom of Vasili (or beyond), but among the tribes and in the Far North in general his name has become a byword, and Iakov Bogumil himself has become a figure more of legend (albeit a minor one) and folklore than of fact.

In his youth, it is said, Iakov Bogumil was a warrior of his people, more skilled in battle than all others, and that he had already earned victory and honor for his tribe and for himself in many different battles before his first quarter-century of life. In the tales told by the old mothers among the six tribes, the young warrior Iakov Bogumil slays many enemies and just as many monsters: Northern barbarians, Vasili soldiers, giant spiders, trolls, ogres, even (so say the most outlandish of the tales) a dragon or two. No enemy was safe from Iakov’s mighty arm. “Iakov Bogumil and the Wyvern Varnava’s Thirty Golden Scales and One” is one of the older tales, and it can still be heard at gatherings in Rundorm to this day. (Or at least it could be up until several weeks ago….)

Then, so say those same tales, Iakov was betrayed – some say by his most trusted friend, others that it was a beautiful maiden whom he loved that betrayed him – whatever the way of it, he was captured and taken into slavery by the soldiers of Vasili (this was during the tribal rebellions led by Timur, seventy years and more before the time of Cain). There, he was forced for a time to do battle against other slaves as a pit fighter, but unlike most unlucky souls condemned to fight in the pits of the South, Iakov eventually managed to escape his captors and, fleeing the city of Southarbor and the Kingdom of Vasili entirely, he returned to the Far North and to his people.

After his escape, Iakov settled down in Rundorm under a new name and there, it is said, he met the love of his life, the beautiful maiden Iseut. Now Iseut was known not only for her great beauty, but also for her fiery disposition, her pious adherence to the old gods and their ways, and yet still more so for her skill as a huntress, for it was said that in her day there was none more skilled at the hunt than she. The tale of Iakov and Iseut, and of how the former warrior and slave hunted the mighty huntress and eventually captured her heart, is a tale long in the telling, but win the maiden’s heart Iakov eventually did. He and Iseut were bound in marriage before the Six and the Nine, the lesser spirits, and all the tribes in a ceremony held among the hills outside of Rundorm.

While the tales of Iakov Bogumil do not end there, they do quickly cease to contain anything in them that might actually have some basis in the truth (assuming, of course, one believes they ever contained such in the first place). And so, tales of Iakov the legendary warrior must be laid aside and accounts of Shikoba Athanasi, the very real mountain sage, must be taken up in their place.

Lurking at the very edge of memory of the elders of the six tribes is a man who may once have called himself Iakov, or possibly it was Blazh, or Drazhan – the accounts of the elders differ on this point, and who can blame them, given that this would have been 60 or 70 years in the past. Regardless, this man was once married to a very beautiful woman – who, the elders generally agree, was named either Iseut or Ibb – and he would eventually become the holy man, mountain hermit, and sage known as Shikoba Athanasi. In all of the tribal elders’ accounts, this man was of the gifted blood and, according to his own testimony as passed down by those elders, he had learned of his gift “during the wars of my youth”.

The first reliable accounts of Shikoba Athanasi are from Bardonium and Falkreach. There it is generally agreed that, when he first appeared, Shikoba Athanasi was fleeing the soldiers of Vasili, though for what crimes it is not known (but if the old tales are true, it likely would have had to do with his escape from slavery in Southarbor). Whatever the truth, Shikoba Athanasi and his wife settled in the foothills between Bardonium and Falkreach, a little ways away from an ancient temple dedicated to the God and Goddess of Earth and Water.

For several decades the couple lived quietly and peacefully in their cottage in the woods behind the Temple of Drisn and Cais (the local equivalents of Ruo and Wae). There, the Shikoba (as he came to be called by the people of that region) offered training in the arts of battle to the young men of the surrounding villages that were deemed by their elders to be of sufficient talent to be worthy of the honor, and he continued to hone his own talent and skill in the arts of internal alchemy and magic, sometimes also taking children under his wing who themselves possessed gifted blood. Eventually it became the custom in that region to send any promising young warriors, as well as any gifted children, to live for a time with the Shikoba and his wife in order that they receive training: in battle for the young warriors, and in the old ways and how they applied to the mastery of gifted blood, for those few children blessed (or cursed) with the knack for magic. For her part, Iseut continued to hunt, and to offer her skill with herbal remedies in trade for goods and services from the villages in the area.

Decade after decade passed in this fashion, until it seemed to most that the Shikoba and his wife had always lived in the tiny hut tucked away behind the Temple of Drisn and Cais that sat among the foothills between Bardonium and Falkreach. By this time a great many of the warriors in the tribes of the Far North had been trained by the Shikoba – or by one of his former students – as had quite a few of the tribes’ gifted. It even happened in later years that, though Shikoba Athanasi himself did not participate in Cain’s Uprising (as he had done in the days of Timur several decades ago), many of the Warrior Chief’s men, and Cain himself, had trained under the Shikoba in their youth.

It eventually came to pass that, in the winter before the dragon Turaung was slain by the Vasili-man Richard Buxton, Iseut fell ill. By this time both she and the Shikoba were already quite old, and so her husband was naturally distressed by her illness, all the more so as her condition worsened. The Shikoba’s students aided him in caring for his wife, but despite their best efforts her illness worsened seemingly in time with the steadily worsening weather of the harsh Northern winter. Iseut’s spirit finally departed her body in mid-winter, during one of the worst blizzards in memory.

The grieving and distraught Shikoba buried his wife of many decades. His students grieved with him for four days afterwards, but on the morning of the fifth day their master was nowhere to be found. After three more days of searching, they finally found the Shikoba sitting at the mouth of a cave halfway up the face of a nearby mountain of the Icy Spine. Though his students begged and entreated, the ancient master would not be moved, declaring that he would find peace in his heart over the death of his wife, or he would find death. Until then, he declared, he would neither move nor take any food or other sustenance.

It is said in some accounts that he sat at the mouth of that cave, in winter, partaking of neither food nor water, for more than a fortnight before rising again, but such tales are doubtless exaggerations of the truth. All that can be said for certain is that the ancient master sat unmoving on his mountain for a long enough span that it inspired first worry, then amazement, and finally superstitious fear. When he finally lifted himself up again he had ceased to be the Shikoba, and had become known instead as Shikoba Athanasi – Old Man Deathless.

Shikoba Athanasi never did come back down from his mountain, though, nor did he return to the hut where he and his wife had lived for nearly five decades. He became a hermit instead, sending all of his former students away, except for a single gifted child who was allowed to remain with him to learn under his tutelage, and to make periodic pilgrimages to the nearby villages for supplies and news. After a decade, the child – now a young adult – was sent back to her people, and a new gifted child was selected and sent to study under the Mountain Sage. Twenty years and two apprentices came and went in this fashion.

Shikoba’s second apprentice was sent back to his people six years ago after his decade of tutelage was complete, and a young boy named Ermo Wilkin was selected to go and train under the ancient master. As had happened with each of his previous students, Shikoba Athanasi soon grew to care for young Ermo as though the boy were his own son (or, more likely, his own great-grandson). The boy demonstrated a talent for magic, but showed an even greater interest and aptitude for the herbal medicinal remedies that Shikoba Athanasi’s wife was once so fond of.

Six more years passed. And then, seven weeks ago, the boy Ermo returned from his latest pilgrimage to Bardonium bearing strange tales of an evil plague that had fallen upon Falkreach. Shikoba Athanasi was troubled upon hearing what the boy had to say, immediately detecting a scent of very dark magic in his protégé’s account of the strange new disease. Fearing the worst, he sent Ermo back to Bardonium the following day to gather any more information he could and to determine the state of things in the surrounding region. The old hermit had the feeling it might finally be time for him to leave his mountain and return to the wider world.

A week passed and Ermo had yet to return. Three more days filled with worry went by, and Shikoba Athanasi could wait no more; for the first time in nearly three decades, the old hermit girded himself for travel and walked down his mountain and out in the wider world. He was entirely unprepared for what he found.

Bardonium was an open grave, echoing with the groans and snarls of the infection that had killed it. The dead were everywhere, as were those who moved but were no longer quite “living”. Though he did discover a few survivors, Shikoba was unable to locate Ermo anywhere, and after having to defend himself and his new charges from the cannibalistic intentions of several plague-stricken the old man decided his search would be best conducted further south.

Using his skills and his magic, Shikoba Athanasi has managed to stay just ahead of the plague for the last five-and-a-half weeks, travelling from village to village and encouraging those he finds to flee and head south. He has tried to treat the plague with medicine, and he has tried to quell it with magic, all to no effect. The best he has been able to offer so far is forewarning of the plague’s impending arrival to those villages he’s managed to reach in time. So far he has been unable to uncover any trace of his lost apprentice Ermo, and fears the poor boy is long since dead – or worse.

A little less than a week ago, while passing through a village whose residents were planning to evacuate to Minorhold, Shikoba heard tell of a group commissioned by the Vasili king with the mission to investigate the cause of the Black Blood Plague and to find a cure. Immediately, he set out for the town of Crossroads where it was rumored they were recruiting members to aid in their mission. Having seen so much already of the fear, misery, and death the plague had already wreaked upon his people, Shikoba Athanasi had no desire to return to the North or to face again the plague-stricken, but he had hidden away from the world for long enough, and a boy whom he cared about very much had paid the price for that. At his age, Shikoba knew he was unlikely to live much longer in any event, and he wanted to spend his final days doing something his wife would be proud of.

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【Skills and Abilities】
 Shikoba Athanasi is considered a holy man of the Old Ways by the tribal people of the Celtobar Peninsular, and as such his knowledge of the Old Gods and their ways is exceptionally thorough. As a tribesman himself, Shikoba is also personally familiar with the ways and customs of the Six Tribes as far north as Falkreach, and he naturally has much knowledge in the art of tracking, hunting, and of simply surviving in the wilds of the North. Additionally, his decades spent in the harsh climate of the Icy Spine Mountains has taught him how to endure even the worst weather, and made him remarkably agile in rocky or steep terrain. Shikoba lacks any kind of “proper” education, however, and knows very little of the ways of the people of Vasili, or of the lands further south.

Though he has never received any formal training in the use of magic, 9 decades has proved sufficient time for Shikoba to become highly skilled in the use of his gifted blood despite facing all of the usual handicaps that come with self-education in such arcane arts. Strictly speaking, Shikoba Athanasi is more of a theurgist than a sorcerer, and nearly all of his magical capabilities are wrapped up in and interwoven with his beliefs in the Old Gods and their ways. 

While he does know a number of charms, cantrips, and spells, most of Athanasi’s focus and training over the years has gone into mastering internal alchemy. As such, most of Athanasi’s magic is extremely subtle and often appears to be more the result of great skill or extensive practice than of supernatural power; what usually gives him away is that no matter how skilled he may be, someone Shikoba Athanasi’s age simply should not be as spry or nimble as he is.

With over 90 years of constant training, and more than just a few battles in his youth to give him practical experience, Shikoba’s martial skills are simply astounding. However his advanced age means that, even with the aid of magic, his body simply cannot perform as it once could. Even so, his skills are such that he can normally best his opponents using skill, speed, and misdirection in place of strength or endurance. Shikoba is proficient with most melee weapons, but is most skilled with staffs, clubs, and swords. He is proficient with a bow and arrow as well, but his old muscles being what they are, he finds drawing and firing one too difficult to do quickly or often.
 
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【Weapons/Tools and Magic】
Weapons/Tools 
Shikoba Athanasi carries the clothes on his back, his walking staff, a skin for holding water, and a small pack in which he keeps the necessities of the road, including his magical supplies. He also typically has a collection of paper charms prepared for the activation of specific, preselected spells tucked away.

For weaponry, Shikoba Athanasi normally uses his walking staff as a weapon, when one is required, but if circumstances require it he can summon a weapon to hand using one of his paper charms (see below). Currently, he favors a tribe-crafted horse chopper blade he came across in one of the many villages he passed through on his way south, as he finds it more effective at incapacitating the plague-stricken than most other kinds of blades.
 
Magical Spells
Athanasi’s magical skills mostly revolve around the internal alchemy taught as part of the Old Ways among the northern tribes. Proper meditations, proper breathing, proper diet, and proper obeisances allow a man to achieve proper balance within himself and with the world around him. So balanced, the enlightened man can achieve such physical feats as rooting himself immovably to the earth, moving like the wind, flowing through and around obstacles like water, resisting cold and other physical hardships with the indifference of a blazing fire, striking with the suddenness and force of a lightning bolt, and removing oneself from sight as completely as a shadow in a brightly lit room, to name but a few.

Centered on the physical body as the majority of these techniques are, they primarily involve motion, endurance, resisting harm, and inflicting it.

Of course at his advanced age, this mostly just means Shikoba Athanasi can keep up with the younger folks when it comes to physical endeavors. Occasionally though, he can be pretty impressive even by their lofty standards.

Most of the “real” magic that Shikoba Athanasi knows involves such things as charms that will bring a man good fortune or bless a marriage, rituals that will improve crop yield in the coming season, incantations to summon or drive away rain, and other such shamanic magic useful to a holy man of the northern tribes. Most of it is entirely useless against the Black Blood Plague. He does have some talent at scrying and reading oracles.
 
In terms of spells that might actually be of some use in the Consano’s mission, Shikoba Athanasi is very proficient in the use of charms that can be written on something (paper, usually, but nearly anything will do) and coupled with a spoken incantation to activate its power. In this way he can create temporary illusions, summon lights and flame, and so on. It takes time to write out the charm, and he must have both a writing instrument and something to write on, but he can prepare such charms in advance, and he typically carries a small assortment of such pre-crafted charms on his person at any given time. One of his most useful tricks using this technique involves using such written charms to summon gear or weapons to his hand, saving him the trouble of carting such things around on his person all the time.

He can also, of course, conjure raw manifestations of elemental force as can most with gifted blood, though in his case his decades of practice and experience mean his own such manifestations are generally more subtle and expertly crafted than most.

I love your milkshakes.
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