Ferrocerium

End + Sleep

@CrimsonAmaranth Finished Almari. Didn't have much luck making the skin gray, so I tried to disguise it with the light. And I might try to do something for the mage eyes at a later date. Let me know if there's any changes you want me to make.

Almari Portrait

End + Sleep

"Madam, I think you're missing the point of my profession."

"You're paid t' carry things from one person to another. How is this any different?"

Rogafi Levilse reminded himself that this was marginally better than having to deal with another farmer accusing him of being a thief with nicer shoes. "I carry letters. Missives. Messages. Parcels, if they're under a certain weight and can fit into my bag. This-" He tapped the box the village woman had laid in front of him with his foot. "This is not a parcel. This is a box of turnips."

"I ain't asking you to take it to bloody Islington. Gracille Wren, she lives at the edge of the river, she's expecting me to bring these around by noon, but I ain't got the time," the woman said. "I'll give ya three fresh eggs, and if you ask nice, I'm sure Gracille'll let you pick out one of the runtier turnips."

"I'm sorry, but that's not the sort of work that I'm looking for," Rogafi said. He hated turnips, anyway.

The villager snorted and spat on Rogafi's boot. "Bloody outsiders," she grumbled, picking up her crate. "Don't appreciate good work."

Rogafi hadn't been expecting much when he'd set up his sign in the village square. It was a worn parchment he'd stuck to the wall, written with lettering large enough to be seen from a distance. "COURIER FOR HIRE - BOUND FOR MEDIOLANN, BY WAY OF ALONSO, ISLINGTON, MIRANDA, EVENPARCH, ISLAY. UTMOST CONFIDENSHIALITY, UTMOST SECURITY. REASONABUL RATES." Alonso was a small, intermediary stop, a place to spend a few days recuperating and resupplying before setting off again. It wasn't a place to find new deliveries. Still, there wasn't anything better to do.

He looked around the town square again. He always liked to be aware of his surroundings, and the area was busy enough that there was always something new going on. The mayor was still arguing with the legionnaires, that hadn't changed. The old mage-eyed woman in the cage was still making him think of his grandmother, so he didn't spend too long looking at her. There was a cloaked woman meandering through the crowd, and that caught Rogafi's attention for a few minutes. Most of the townsfolk were walking with direction, with certainty in their destination, but the way this woman was looking around -

'Searching for something?'

Rogafi looked away when the woman's gaze turned towards him. He kept watching the square. It looked like the Legion recruiter had hooked a fresh fish, a bearded man on a mule. Rogafi had already filed finding Legion work away under 'last resort'; the militia would have the budget and the need to have messages delivered, but the rumors that they were recruiting magicians gave Rogafi gooseflesh. He didn't have mage-eyes, but still...

"Courier for hire, courier for hire!" he called out, hoping to grab attention that his sign clearly wasn't. "Reasonable rates, totally safe! Bound for Mediolann as soon as the weather turns! Courier for hire!"

End + Sleep

@CrimsonAmaranth I'll see what I can do.

@Life in Stasis Yeah, a Carnelian would be a bit of a challenge, particularly the carapace. I might be able to wrangle something into working, but no promises.

@Cherry Blossom DAZ Studio.

End + Sleep

Thanks. I like being able to visualize my characters. In fact, if anybody wants, I'd happily try my hand at making your characters.

End + Sleep

I'm still alive, just literally the worst at figuring out what to write for the first post. In the meantime, I'm also no good at finding character portraits, so I made my own.

Rogafi Portrait

Please ignore the fact that his hair looks like he just got done filming a L'Oreal commercial.

End + Sleep

Rogafi Levilse

ROGAFI LEVILSE

---

Portrait

"It is not the strongest who survive, nor the most intelligent. It is the ones who can run really, really, really fast."

---

31 | Human | No Mage-Eyes

P E R S O N A L I T Y

❖ [ Wanderlust ]
❖ [ Fatal Curiosity ]
❖ [ Flight, Not Fight ]
❖ [ Guarded ]
❖ [ Paranoid ]

Rogafi is a traveler by birth, a survivor by necessity, and a wanderer by nature. Born as part of a traveling caravan, he rarely stayed in one place for more than a few days, and he still gets an itch in his feet that only the road can scratch. After the loss of his caravan and family, he scrabbled to survive in the streets of Viola, and even now, he watches those around him carefully as he eats, as if he's afraid that they'll try to take his meal from him. When he's on the trail, he looks ahead with one eye and back with the other. Trouble and Rogafi are old friends, but something in him thrives on adrenaline and adventure.

A P P E A R A N C E

Rogafi is a thin, angular scarecrow of a man. His gaunt cheeks are covered with a bristly black beard, hiding most of his lower face but his thin lips. The narrowness of his eyes is pronounced by the heaviness of his brow, and his face has the wrinkles of a man ten years his senior.

He wears the heavy brown cloak of a traveler, which has seen more than a few seasons of wear and tear. There are off-color patches where he's done his best to mend tears and holes, but he's never been able to find a scrap of cloth with the precise shade of brown as the rest of the cloak. He finds this irritating, but cannot for the life of him explain why. Under the cloak, his clothes are equally as worn, and his boots are so broken in that they're practically a second layer of skin.

He can almost always be seen carrying his courier's satchel, where he keeps his deliveries and packages. The leather is so thick that it could probably deflect an arrow, and it looks like it has on more than one occasion. Looking closer, it's also apparent that it's been kicked, stabbed, clawed, and chewed on, but Rogafi still wears it with pride.

H I S T O R Y

In the Age of the Widow, there's no profession that is more dangerous, or rightly maligned, than the courier. With the efertide making travel barely even a fantasy for the common folk, it takes a special sort of fool to risk running the long roads, darting from bonfire to bonfire. Rogafi Levilse is exactly that sort of fool.

Rogafi was born as part of a traveling caravan in Milos, a small band even in terms of the nomadic packs that traveled the long roads of that land. It was by necessity; the Levilse Bonfire had long ago been lost, and without it, the caravan was slowly being ground down into the dust. To survive, they had adopted the ways of the Old Soot, and at a young age Rogafi began learning those traditions from his grandmother, the clan's matriarch. It was a hard, meager life, but it was the only one that young Rogafi had ever known.

The Levilse Caravan is gone, now. Travelers discovered the tangled, rotting remains of their wagons littering the rocky back roads the Levilse had walked, with not a sign of life or death among them. Rogafi won't say what happened, or how he came to become a street rat in the alleys of Viola, but the nomads love to whisper.

"The Levilse fell victim to a plague, and young Rogafi was sent away before he could fall ill."

"A monster destroyed the caravan, and swallowed them all whole, except for little Rogafi, who was too small to even be a morsel."

"The old gods came to collect the ashen tax, and only Rogafi escaped."

Without his family, Rogafi scrabbled to survive in the streets of Viola, until he was old enough to take on the first courier job he could find. He's run the long roads ever since, always with one eye looking over his shoulder.

I N V E N T O R Y

❖ Hunting Knife
❖ Rations, five days
❖ Flint and Tinderbox
❖ Map of Invernier, worn out and covered with notes in Rogafi's handwriting
❖ Waterskin
❖ Courier's Satchel; Contents: various letters and small packages.
❖ Compass

O T H E R

❖ Rogafi's eternal traveling companion is Silversmith, a burly gray horse with a taste for apples.
❖ He simply doesn't feel right when there are four walls around him. In the modern age, a psychiatrist might diagnose him with a relatively mild case of claustrophobia.

End + Sleep

Here we go, first draft of my character sheet. I'll PM you my ideas for some Old Soot spells.

Rogafi Sheet Draft

ROGAFI LEVILSE

---

"It is not the strongest who survive, nor the most intelligent. It is the ones who can run really, really, really fast."

---

31 | Human | Mage-Eyes

P E R S O N A L I T Y

❖ [ Wanderlust ]
❖ [ Fatal Curiosity ]
❖ [ Fight? No, Flight ]
❖ [ Haunted ]
❖ [ Fear Of Loss ]

A P P E A R A N C E

Garofi is a narrow man with a sharp nose, prominent chin, and gaunt cheeks. He wears traveling clothes with signs of wear and tear, and worn-out boots that have been broken in so thoroughly they're almost a second layer of skin.

His mage-eyes are as black as charcoal, with pupils that glow like embers.

H I S T O R Y

In the Age of the Widow, there's no profession that is more dangerous, or rightly maligned, than the courier. With the efertide making travel barely even a fantasy for the common folk, it takes a special sort of fool to risk running the long roads, darting from bonfire to bonfire. Rogafi Levilse is exactly that sort of fool.

Rogafi was born as part of a traveling caravan in Milos, a small band even in terms of the nomadic packs that traveled the long roads of that land. It was by necessity; the Levilse Bonfire had long ago been lost, and without it, the caravan was slowly being ground down into the dust. To survive, they had adopted the ways of the Old Soot, and at a young age Rogafi learned those traditions from his grandmother, the clan's matriarch. It was a hard, meager life, but it was the only one that young Rogafi had ever known.

The Levilse Caravan is gone, now. Travelers discovered the tangled, rotting remains of their wagons littering the rocky back roads the Levilse had walked, with not a sign of life or death among them. Rogafi won't say what happened, or how he came to become a street rat in the alleys of Viola, but the nomads love to whisper.

"The Levilse fell victim to a plague, and young Rogafi was sent away before he could fall ill."

"A monster destroyed the caravan, and swallowed them all whole, except for little Rogafi, who was too small to even be a morsel."

"The old gods came to collect the ashen tax, and only Rogafi escaped."

Without his family, and mage-eyes that make it clear what tradition he follows, Rogafi scrabbled to survive in the streets of Viola, until he was old enough to take on the first courier job he could find. He's run the long roads ever since, always with one eye looking over his shoulder.

I N V E N T O R Y

❖ Hunting Knife
❖ Rations, five days
❖ Waterskin
❖ Courier's Satchel; Contents: Unknown
❖ Compass

O T H E R

Anything that doesn’t fit in the other sections? Throw it here!

End + Sleep: A High Fantasy Adventure in Cursed Land

TL;DR: In a setting that borrows heavily from Shakespeare, you're trying to make a cyborg Geralt of Rivia with a gun.

End + Sleep: A High Fantasy Adventure in Cursed Land

"Every night, we're set upon by a horrible black tide that rises from the woods and waters and swallows those that walk in it. Our king is dead, our nation is in shambles, and we're hanging on to life with the dogged perseverance of a stubborn survivor. So no, I do not want to see you juggle three fucking colorful balls while singing a thinly-veiled song about sex. Piss off."

End + Sleep: A High Fantasy Adventure in Cursed Land

Are there still any openings available? This seems really well thought-out and interesting. I love how the magic schools are all connected by a concrete theme beyond 'this is the illusion magic', 'this is the healing magic', and so on.

Just from reading that first post, my initial idea for a character (just brainstorming) would be a courier of some sort. Maybe a human, maybe a goblin, definitely with some tangential knowledge of Old Soot (a valuable tool for anyone walking the long roads). He/she wouldn't have been a courier for long, if only because most couriers don't do the work for more than a few years before quitting in terror and hiding from the darkness in the bottom of the deepest bottle they can find, retiring into a life of lazy, well-earned comfort, or vanishing somewhere in the wooded darkness between point A and point B.

As I said, that's just the first idea that came to mind. If it wouldn't fit in the setting, I'll think of something else.