Member
CollectorOfMyst
NightbringerHere's Ragnar!
Name: Father Ragnar Hjálmgrímr
Age: 19
Height/Weight: 5'5, 145 lbs
Race: Muraadan, Clan Ravn
Appearance:
Boyish and short of stature, Ragnar is no one's image of a hardened war priest. Though he is a man grown by most estimates, Ragnar still possesses the soft unhoned face of a boy five years his younger, and although the merciless physical training of twelve years within the Red Seminary has granted him a lithe, agile and powerful physique, he will forever detest the body the Heart Lord gave him.
Ragnar has a plain ordinary kind of face, the kind of face you would find on a shepherd boy out in the icefields of his homeland. To his great dismay, he has no scars or facial marring to speak of, as his role as the Protector of the group made it so that he didn't have to endure as much physical punishment as his fellow pupils during their long years of training. For as long as anyone can remember, Ragnar has kept his scalp shorn, as he has convinced himself that it makes his ether flow more smoothly. If he did allow his hair to grow, it would be a pale ashen blonde like his mother's, or so he thinks.
Like all children of the Muraadan wastelands, Ragnar's body is tattooed with the runic markings of his birth clan. For reasons he doesn't enjoy talking about, he keeps these tattoos hidden as much as he can.
When not wearing his Inquisitor's uniform, Ragnar favors a supple white cloak, lined with thick, heavy wolf fur.
Personality: In his darkest dreams, Ragnar envisions a different world. He loathes this existence, its rules and reality. The cruel, indifferent gods, the cold, the wars, the endlessly churning machines being fed by the blood of innocents, the savagery prevalent in all facets of society, if he was powerful enough he would tear this world apart, shatter it like so many remnants. If only he was-- No, he mustn't.
Whenever these kinds of thoughts rise to the surface, Ragnar banishes them to that shadowed meadow within him, and he has become an old hand at protecting his truest feelings from others. Yes, if there is one thing Ragnar is good at, it's putting up shields, both emotional and magical.
Ragnar strives to be happy, and to bring light and cheer to the dark halls of the Red Seminary. Whether it be throwing surprise birthday parties or making certain everyone has clean clothes and enough food, Ragnar has made it his mission to make the lives of his fellow pupils as carefree and happy as possible.
He loves each and every one of his companions unconditionally... Everyone except for Mother Astraea, for whom he has complicated feelings for.
Knowing that Astraea and other Inquisitors with similar abilities would be able to see through him in an instant, Ragnar keeps a constant "emotional aegis" veiling his most unholy feelings and desires, keeping them to the shadows while the bright, cheery boy performs in the light of the stage. He goes to sleep every night terrified of the Lanostran inquisitor becoming powerful enough one day to see through his little shield...
Despite his natural dishonesty, his is an unbreakable force of spirit, a heart that beats no matter how much its stepped on. Being the Protector of the group, he must shed his own ether to keep the aegis going, an ordeal which allows the deathly cold to seep into his veins. This causes him immense pain and discomfort, but through years of training and the encouragement of his friends, he has learned to bear the freezing of his blood and protect his friends while outside the city, as only he can.
Background: Born to Clan Ravn in the wastelands of Muraad, Ragnar came from a family of miners. His father, a young ambitious craftsman with lofty goals, left the small village to seek a life in Magnagrad when Ragnar and his young sister were small children. Not a week after their father left, a group of Lanostran pirates, with an an apostate priest leading them, raided their village. Ragnar and his sister were bid to run by their mother, and so he grabbed his sister by the hand and ran. They didn't stop, not even when the screams rang through the night. Eventually, he and his sister reached the icelands, past the boundary of the village's small aegis, and the cold quickly stole its way into their blood. The young boy held his sister close as the darkness closed in on them both.
When Ragnar woke up, he found himself in the hold of a Varyan transport ship, completely alone save for a few soldiers sleeping next to him. He looked in vain for his younger sister, but could not find her. Eventually, one of the Varyan soldiers woke up, and told him to go "speak to the priest up on deck".
The priest, a Varyan inquisitor named Mother Natalya, told him of what had happened. They had been tracking the rogue apostate, who had been an 11th-year pupil of the Red Seminary before abandoning the Church, for many months. The young apostate had been judged to be extremely dangerous, as he partnered with a band of Lanostran deserters who had been on the run since their Goddess' surrender to Varya many years passed. Mother Natalya was having difficulty hunting them, but had finally pinned their location in Muraad.
She looked Ragnar in the eyes and apologized to him for not being able to save his village in time, but assured the boy that the apostate and his men were now corpses. When Ragnar had finally gathered the courage to ask about his sister, the Inquisitor met him with an unconcerned look on her face.
"That girl next to you? She died of exposure. When we found you her skin was black with frostbite. You, on the other hand, somehow survived. You were warm to the touch."
The Inquisitor then ordered him to stop sobbing, and explained that she could detect a torrent of ether sleeping within him. Without offering him a choice, she then brought him to the halls of the Red Seminary.
Talents/Ethereal Abilities:
Mist: An ability that manifested during Ragnar's formative years in the Red Seminary, it allows Ragnar to summon a cloud of ethereal mist around himself and to control its volume and luminosity. With enough concentration, he can cause it to become blindingly bright or dark enough to act as smoke. Due to his lifelong concentration on honing his aegis magic, this ability has been largely ignored and thus lacks in refinement, power and focus. Ragnar has very little control of it, and though he has played with its use a few times in training to attempt to trick his fellow pupils, it isn't very effective when used against them, as trained war priests can easily see through the mist through sheer force of will and concentration.
Aegis: Ragnar's main focus, it is among the most essential ethereal magics in the whole of the empire. Every warband of Inquisitors must have a Protector among its ranks. This Protector's duty is to uphold the aegis, a protective veil that acts very much in the same vein as the continent-wide palings that shield the population from the cold, but on a much smaller scale. In order to uphold an aegis, a particularly powerful priest with a massive ether pool must be chosen at a young age to specifically be trained in its summoning and maintenance. Aegis are not fueled by the ether from other sources, but from a priest's own pool, thus the natural magical reservoirs of a Protector must be substantial, as the longer the aegis is maintained, the more cold can seep into their blood.
Dual ice picks/scythes: All Muraadan children know how to use icepicks, as they are born and live on the frozen wastelands and must be skilled in their use less they fall victim to the ever shifting ice fields. Ragnar has retained some of what his mother taught him many years ago, and has continued training in the use of these tools. He has replaced the icepicks with miniature scythes, but the concept still remains the same. Given his small stature, he is more agile than most of the members of his squad, and though he isn't particularly strong, he is talented enough in the use of these weapons that he can cause serious damage to anyone who manages to get close enough to risk disrupting the aegis.
Personal Seal: A blue moth encased in frost.
Character Relationships:
Name: Father Ragnar Hjálmgrímr
Age: 19
Height/Weight: 5'5, 145 lbs
Race: Muraadan, Clan Ravn
Appearance:
Boyish and short of stature, Ragnar is no one's image of a hardened war priest. Though he is a man grown by most estimates, Ragnar still possesses the soft unhoned face of a boy five years his younger, and although the merciless physical training of twelve years within the Red Seminary has granted him a lithe, agile and powerful physique, he will forever detest the body the Heart Lord gave him.
Ragnar has a plain ordinary kind of face, the kind of face you would find on a shepherd boy out in the icefields of his homeland. To his great dismay, he has no scars or facial marring to speak of, as his role as the Protector of the group made it so that he didn't have to endure as much physical punishment as his fellow pupils during their long years of training. For as long as anyone can remember, Ragnar has kept his scalp shorn, as he has convinced himself that it makes his ether flow more smoothly. If he did allow his hair to grow, it would be a pale ashen blonde like his mother's, or so he thinks.
Like all children of the Muraadan wastelands, Ragnar's body is tattooed with the runic markings of his birth clan. For reasons he doesn't enjoy talking about, he keeps these tattoos hidden as much as he can.
When not wearing his Inquisitor's uniform, Ragnar favors a supple white cloak, lined with thick, heavy wolf fur.
Personality: In his darkest dreams, Ragnar envisions a different world. He loathes this existence, its rules and reality. The cruel, indifferent gods, the cold, the wars, the endlessly churning machines being fed by the blood of innocents, the savagery prevalent in all facets of society, if he was powerful enough he would tear this world apart, shatter it like so many remnants. If only he was-- No, he mustn't.
Whenever these kinds of thoughts rise to the surface, Ragnar banishes them to that shadowed meadow within him, and he has become an old hand at protecting his truest feelings from others. Yes, if there is one thing Ragnar is good at, it's putting up shields, both emotional and magical.
Ragnar strives to be happy, and to bring light and cheer to the dark halls of the Red Seminary. Whether it be throwing surprise birthday parties or making certain everyone has clean clothes and enough food, Ragnar has made it his mission to make the lives of his fellow pupils as carefree and happy as possible.
He loves each and every one of his companions unconditionally... Everyone except for Mother Astraea, for whom he has complicated feelings for.
Knowing that Astraea and other Inquisitors with similar abilities would be able to see through him in an instant, Ragnar keeps a constant "emotional aegis" veiling his most unholy feelings and desires, keeping them to the shadows while the bright, cheery boy performs in the light of the stage. He goes to sleep every night terrified of the Lanostran inquisitor becoming powerful enough one day to see through his little shield...
Despite his natural dishonesty, his is an unbreakable force of spirit, a heart that beats no matter how much its stepped on. Being the Protector of the group, he must shed his own ether to keep the aegis going, an ordeal which allows the deathly cold to seep into his veins. This causes him immense pain and discomfort, but through years of training and the encouragement of his friends, he has learned to bear the freezing of his blood and protect his friends while outside the city, as only he can.
Background: Born to Clan Ravn in the wastelands of Muraad, Ragnar came from a family of miners. His father, a young ambitious craftsman with lofty goals, left the small village to seek a life in Magnagrad when Ragnar and his young sister were small children. Not a week after their father left, a group of Lanostran pirates, with an an apostate priest leading them, raided their village. Ragnar and his sister were bid to run by their mother, and so he grabbed his sister by the hand and ran. They didn't stop, not even when the screams rang through the night. Eventually, he and his sister reached the icelands, past the boundary of the village's small aegis, and the cold quickly stole its way into their blood. The young boy held his sister close as the darkness closed in on them both.
When Ragnar woke up, he found himself in the hold of a Varyan transport ship, completely alone save for a few soldiers sleeping next to him. He looked in vain for his younger sister, but could not find her. Eventually, one of the Varyan soldiers woke up, and told him to go "speak to the priest up on deck".
The priest, a Varyan inquisitor named Mother Natalya, told him of what had happened. They had been tracking the rogue apostate, who had been an 11th-year pupil of the Red Seminary before abandoning the Church, for many months. The young apostate had been judged to be extremely dangerous, as he partnered with a band of Lanostran deserters who had been on the run since their Goddess' surrender to Varya many years passed. Mother Natalya was having difficulty hunting them, but had finally pinned their location in Muraad.
She looked Ragnar in the eyes and apologized to him for not being able to save his village in time, but assured the boy that the apostate and his men were now corpses. When Ragnar had finally gathered the courage to ask about his sister, the Inquisitor met him with an unconcerned look on her face.
"That girl next to you? She died of exposure. When we found you her skin was black with frostbite. You, on the other hand, somehow survived. You were warm to the touch."
The Inquisitor then ordered him to stop sobbing, and explained that she could detect a torrent of ether sleeping within him. Without offering him a choice, she then brought him to the halls of the Red Seminary.
Talents/Ethereal Abilities:
Mist: An ability that manifested during Ragnar's formative years in the Red Seminary, it allows Ragnar to summon a cloud of ethereal mist around himself and to control its volume and luminosity. With enough concentration, he can cause it to become blindingly bright or dark enough to act as smoke. Due to his lifelong concentration on honing his aegis magic, this ability has been largely ignored and thus lacks in refinement, power and focus. Ragnar has very little control of it, and though he has played with its use a few times in training to attempt to trick his fellow pupils, it isn't very effective when used against them, as trained war priests can easily see through the mist through sheer force of will and concentration.
Aegis: Ragnar's main focus, it is among the most essential ethereal magics in the whole of the empire. Every warband of Inquisitors must have a Protector among its ranks. This Protector's duty is to uphold the aegis, a protective veil that acts very much in the same vein as the continent-wide palings that shield the population from the cold, but on a much smaller scale. In order to uphold an aegis, a particularly powerful priest with a massive ether pool must be chosen at a young age to specifically be trained in its summoning and maintenance. Aegis are not fueled by the ether from other sources, but from a priest's own pool, thus the natural magical reservoirs of a Protector must be substantial, as the longer the aegis is maintained, the more cold can seep into their blood.
Dual ice picks/scythes: All Muraadan children know how to use icepicks, as they are born and live on the frozen wastelands and must be skilled in their use less they fall victim to the ever shifting ice fields. Ragnar has retained some of what his mother taught him many years ago, and has continued training in the use of these tools. He has replaced the icepicks with miniature scythes, but the concept still remains the same. Given his small stature, he is more agile than most of the members of his squad, and though he isn't particularly strong, he is talented enough in the use of these weapons that he can cause serious damage to anyone who manages to get close enough to risk disrupting the aegis.
Personal Seal: A blue moth encased in frost.
Character Relationships:
