Lovejoy

The Last Embers (Dark Steampunk/Fantasy)

@OppositionJ Added a bit about Tatiana to Mother Indira's relationships. Let me know what you think!

The Last Embers (Dark Steampunk/Fantasy)

Mother Indira Al-Sayed, The First Summoner



At thirty-four years old, Mother Indira Al-Sayed is the youngest instructor in the Red Seminary. Born with a prodigious gift for ether, Mother Indira was the first priest in the Varyan Empire to successfully subjugate a demon from the Black Glacier. She then chose to return to her training grounds to continue her research on demon summoning and to teach her method and science to a new generation of priests. Being the first "summoner" within the empire, Mother Indira is renowned throughout Varya as an incredibly powerful mage and scientist. As a former Omestrian slave, and due in part to her own charismatic nature, her rise is often cited as what led to the newer generations of Varyans adopting a more favorable view of Omestrians and becoming less enamored with the slave trade, thus she is seen as a sort of folk hero among both progressives and Omestrian slaves. She considers this ironic, and silently laughs at those who see her as a beacon of hope for enslaved Omestrians, as it was her own ability to enslave a "lesser race" of beings that has galvanized these younger Varyans to act.

For the past twelve years, Mother Indira has been the main instructor of Leviathan Warband, but runs her own separate training regimen for those in the Seminary with the highest recorded ether pools. This program, known as the Circle, is a highly intensive five-year long curriculum that aims to teach pupils with a highly potent and unique form of ether the skills needed to successfully subjugate and summon demons. She accepts very few students into this program, and from those who made the cut, the vast majority were cut at some point after being judged to "not have what it takes" by Mother Indira. In more than a decade, only two pupils out of dozens have shown the aptitude to complete their specialized training under her and graduate from the Circle-- those two young priests being Mother Tatiana of Warband Phoenix, who is now an ordained Inquisitor, and Father Dara of Warband Seraph, who one year prior disappeared from the Seminary and became an apostate shortly before Culmination.

Days after Warband Leviathan's culmination, she, along with most of the senior Seminary teaching staff, was called to the Elurian front.

Mother Indira's relationships:

Mother Viveca and Father Oren: @Scout @CollectorofMyst
To Viveca and Oren, Mother Indira was a teacher, confidant, and mentor. She was often overly hard with the two young Omestrian priests, instilling harsher punishments and giving them tougher assignments. When questioned as to why they were being treated differently, Indira told them that as Omestrians, they would always be seen as inferior to other races, and would thus have to work twice as hard as others to prove their worth. Beyond that, she sought to train them to always "be mindful", for any hint of faithlessness, any sign of them "straying from the path" could spell disaster for them. For years, day in and day out, she taught them how to properly enshroud themselves as devout Varyan priests, how to properly mask any feelings of faithlessness and how to appear as devout followers of the Ravenous Lord.

When it came to their shared Omestrian culture, she didn't engage in teaching them anything about their people, instead leaving them to figure that part out themselves. The one creed that she instilled in them was the following mantra:

"Deep within you there is a flame. Never allow it to go out."

Father Ilya: @Draken

Mother Indira had an especially strained relationship with the young Varyan priest. Perhaps it was her inexperience as an intructor at play, or her still-fresh childhood memories suffering at the hands of families like his, but she could not, no matter how much she tried, divorce her feelings as a former Omestrian slave from having to teach this son of a Varyan noble. She knew it wasn't her place to share her experiences with the boy, to tell him of how her hands were shattered by hammer and rod numerous times when she wasn't quick enough in doing a task, or how she had to watch her mother passed around to her lord's military friends like a whore-- no, her purpose was to teach this boy how to become an inquisitor. And that's what she did.

Ilya was often included in Viveca and Oren's "extracurricular activities", but for a different reason. She didn't do it as a way to make certain he was more adequately prepared to face a world that would look down on him, but for a more selfish reason-- she just didn't like him, and wanted the boy to suffer how she suffered. However, as the years passed, and Ilya showed himself to be an extraordinary pupil who continuously passed her tests and endured everything she threw at him, she suddenly found herself quietly respecting the boy and growing fond of him. After all, here was a boy who she made suffer the same physical punishments she did, and he faced them unflinchingly, without ever breaking.

These days, Ilya and Mother Indira are something near to close friends. Though they are more than a decade apart in age, they often drink together and discuss politics. She often felt some measure of guilt over how she allowed her own feelings towards him to affect her as an instructor, and now believes that she could have gotten the same results from him with less harsher methods.

Mother Tatiana @OppositionJ and Father Dara

Tatiana and Dara were the only students who had completed five years of specialized summoner's training under Mother Indira and managed to not only journey to the Black Glacier to claim a demon for themselves, but return with their lives. As such, she treasured her "two little dragons" above all else, and treated them like a doting mother-- always pushing them to their limits, never accepting failure, and being so fiercely protective of them and their gift that she forbid the other instructors from marring her hard work. Because of this, Tatiana and Dara were rarely seen on Gregoroth's training yard. Instead, the two spent their years at the Tower, attempting to become the empire's second summoners.

In Tatiana, Mother Indira found a surrogate daughter and apprentice. She viewed the young Lanostran as a true student, someone whom she would continue to train for decades to come, and the one who would eventually rise as Indira's successor. She hoped that Tatiana would one day become an instructor herself, and carry on her legacy by passing her teachings down to newer generations. This plan to continue to train the young priestess hit a roadblock after Indira was called to the Elurian front. Like many inquisitors and scientists, Indira was deeply interested in the wild land of El, but planned to travel there years after the subjegation was complete to do her research. She had no desire to slog through a warzone after all, and instead planned to send Dara to fight in her stead. After Dara disappeared however, Indira had no choice but to assist in the Elurian invasion herself.

Unlike Tatiana, Father Dara, the quiet but supremely gifted Protector of Warband Seraph, was not seen as a successor or work in progress, for the boy didn't have the proper aptitude for such things. Instead, Dara would be the "results" the Varyan Church wanted from Indira's training regimen. A gift to the bishops, a powerful weapon for them to wield on the warfront while she focused on training Tatiana, the one she viewed as her true heir. Thus, when Dara suddenly disappeared days before his Culmination, it destroyed her well-laid plans. Even now, a year later, she longs to find him, for he is dangerous, not just to the empire, but to himself as well.

The Last Embers (Dark Steampunk/Fantasy)

@SisyphusHe is incredibly powerful, but in a different way!

The Last Embers (Dark Steampunk/Fantasy)

The Red Seminary:

***
Father Antonin, "The White Necromancer"



The Head of Medicine and Life Ether, Father Antonin was responsible for the teaching of the healing and necromantic arts within the Red Seminary. After the ordainment of Warbands Phoenix and Leviathan, the most recent graduating classes, Antonin was summoned to subjugate the Continent of El and left his post to serve on the Elurian front.

Out of all the instructors within the Red Seminary, the T'saraen inquisitor was perhaps the kindest and most beloved instructor among the student populace. He was a man who truly seemed to care for the well-being of his pupils, and delighted in teaching those with the necessary ether type how to properly channel and make use of their healing abilities.

According to available records, Antonin had held his post at The Red Seminary for more than two centuries. How the man has managed to live that long, while still maintaining the appearance of a man in his thirties, is one of the more enduring mysteries within the Seminary. Every student believes they know the answer to this mystery, but Antonin only answers each query with a wry smile.

Father Antonin's relationships

When it came to Warband Phoenix, the White Necromancer treated the pupils of that class much the same as he did other trainees, with kindness and a scholarly warmth, but for one exception. Recognizing Mother Astraea's incredible gift for healing magic, Antonin was her master in cultivating these arts for much of her childhood. Throughout the years, as master and trainee, the two shared a distant if not cordial relationship.

Antonin didn't seem too interested in the Inquisitor or her future, never taking note of her bruises or her acoomplishments on the stone training yard, but was seemingly obsessed with her magic. He dedicated himself to teaching her how to master it. Oftentimes, he would call her inborn magic "a miracle among miracles", for it was an exceedingly rare occurance for a child to be born with such a gift. For his part, Antonin was unlike any of the other instructors in the Seminary. He never punished her for her mistakes, or broke her to the point of tears in an attempt to test her willpower. Instead, he was as a gardener, cultivating a prized fruit through many long seasons. He would only teach her once a week, and though these sessions were draining on her ether, it never became as brutal as anything like her physical training. Indeed, it mostly seemed as though he was observing, and not teaching her. To her surprise, her gift seemed to blossom on its own.

Whenever Astraea took part in his lessons, she would notice how he never seemed to make eye contact, and appeared to look through her whenever he did. On the one occasion that her curiosity got the best of her and she allowed herself to sense Antonin's emotions, she was confronted with something wholly unexpected from the friendly, warm instructor. The depths of despair and sadness she felt upon seeing his true emotions was unlike anything she had ever felt. Within Antonin, she felt an all-enshrouding pain-- physical, emotional, and spiritual. It was as if he had been broken into a thousand painful fragments and a third of those pieces had been stitched together again. After taking one glimpse at his inner self, she never did it again, and quietly continued her training with him until Antonin was called to the Elurian front a few months before Culmination.

***

Father Gregoroth, "The Great Bear"


A veteran of the Lanostran War and countless other conflicts, Father Gregoroth stands among the most renowned warriors in all of Varya. An inquisitor who has mastered the skill of ether manipulation, his raw physical strength and power, when enhanced by his potent ether abilities, are nigh unmatched in all the church. During the last days of the Lanostran war, he engaged in battle with Mother Xera Athalos, one of the most powerful warpriests of that land, in a duel which lasted three days and three nights. At the end of the battle, both Gregoroth and Xera were mortally wounded, but their sheer display of grit and strength caused soldiers from both lands to declare a temporary truce in honor of the two combatants' draw. The day after, the Goddess Lanostre surrendered to Lord Varya.

Some believe that it was Father Gregoroth's duel that ended the war, as its result showed that even the Lady's greatest inquisitors couldn't beat him on a on-on-one fight. Gregoroth brushes aside this claim and believes the timing of the Lady's surrender to be mere coincidence.

In the two decades since the war, Gregoroth has been the Head of Combat Training at the Red Seminary, where he has featured in the nightmares of many a pupil. His brutal and uncompromising methods have yielded many a promising inquisitor, while also leading to the deaths of countless trainees. The deaths of failed pupils does not lie heavily on Gregoroth's conscience, for he only strives for one truth-- to forge the strongest Inquisitors the Red Seminary has ever known.

Father Gregoroth's relationships:

Gregoroth was a terror, an unyielding battering ram that continuously broke the members of the class, allowed them to rebuild themselves, and broke them again. He had a seething distaste for weakness, and did not suffer it. The Great Bear seemed to exist solely to snuff the unworthy from the world, and didn't care for the shattered pieces he left in his wake.

He was good at his job, for it forced Phoenix to become as steel in order to survive. Out of all the pupils, he took pleasure in torturing Stina the most. Through the years of punishment and Stina's enduring of them, it became clear that Gregoroth had taken a shine to the young man. Gregoroth would often berate Stina, calling him a stupid weakling, but laughing all the while. He would often beat the young man into a bloody pulp, and then nod in approval when Stina rose to his feet. It was a sign of respect between master and student, and there is little doubt that the Great Bear's teachings helped fashion Stina into the Inquisitor he is today.

***

Father Creid, "The Brave Man's Fear"


Main Instructor of Warband Phoenix, Father Creid has been a constant presence in the lives of the young class for the past 12 years. The masked Inquisitor, who's hobbled form bears the wounds of some mysterious accident, led the young class through hell, and managed to come out the other side with all of his pupils surviving. Indeed, somehow, Father Creid has never lost a student during training.

Known for his sardonic wit and unconventional training methods, Creid is a maverick among the seminary's faculty. He cares little for faith-based training, encourages his students to pursue independent research outside of the school's curriculum, and routinely brings in soldiers from the Secular Army as well as non-military men and women to teach seminars on combat and survival to his students.

Creid's past, and his actions during the Lanostran War, are shrouded in secrecy. The only thing known about his etheric abilities is that they grant him some measure of control over time and space-- as he once demonstrated his ability to appear in three different places at once to his class as an example of higher-level sorcery. The mysteries behind his etheric magic are fathomless and the masked Inquisitor isn't interested in disclosing what his actual powers are. His secrecy has caused many legends about him to crop up throughout the years, the most popular claiming Creid capable of simply erasing his foes from existence without so much as lifting a finger. Father Creid, always good-humored, laughs at this, and calls it "a ridiculous myth". Still, the fact that inquisitors and soldiers alike throughout the empire know him as "The Brave Man's Fear" does little to quell these rumors.

Months before Warband Phoenix's Culmination, Creid was called to the Elurian front, like most other members of the Red Seminary's faculty. It is known that he was granted command of the warship Durandal, one of the invasion fleet's most powerful steam arks, and is currently on the mysterious continent, conquering in the name of Lord Varya.

Father Creid's relationships:

The masked Inquisitor didn't seem to possess much in the form of emotional attachment to any of his students. He was of a light disposition, always there to hold a conversation or answer questions, his mood always on a level plain. But beyond this, nothing. In fact, it is difficult to remember him ever being angry, or sad, or excited about anything. Because of this, there was a strange sense of inhumanity about him (his stiff movements and artificial limbs dodn't help matters, of course). Creid's purpose was to impart his knowledge and make his trainees the greatest inquisitors he could. Unlike Gregoroth's method of sharpening pupils down until only iron remained, Creid preferred building his students up-- taking their own unique quirks, strengths and weaknesses-- and making them powerful and exceptional the way they were, warts and all. He strove to not just make them powerful in magic, but knowledgeable in as many aspects of the world as possible. Unlike other classes, it seemed as though he was equipping Warband Phoenix for something that didn't involve war or religion. He worked tirelessly to give his students strength and wisdom, but would disappeared as soon as the sessions were over. To see Creid on training-free days was rare.

Creid treated all his pupils the same, regardless of their skill. Even though he was in charge of teaching his students ether manipulation as well as strengthening and honing their magical abilities, he kept no favorites. All of his students received the same amount of attention, no matter the size of their ether pools, or what truly lay in their hearts regarding the Church and Lord Varya.

***

Mother Indira Al-Sayed, The First Summoner



At thirty-four years old, Mother Indira Al-Sayed is the youngest instructor in the Red Seminary. Born with a prodigious gift for ether, Mother Indira was the first priest in the Varyan Empire to successfully subjugate a demon from the Black Glacier. She then chose to return to her training grounds to continue her research on demon summoning and to teach her method and science to a new generation of priests. Being the first "summoner" within the empire, Mother Indira is renowned throughout Varya as an incredibly powerful mage and scientist. As a former Omestrian slave, and due in part to her own charismatic nature, her rise is often cited as what led to the newer generations of Varyans adopting a more favorable view of Omestrians and becoming less enamored with the slave trade, thus she is seen as a sort of folk hero among both progressives and Omestrian slaves. She considers this ironic, and silently laughs at those who see her as a beacon of hope for enslaved Omestrians, as it was her own ability to enslave a "lesser race" of beings that has galvanized these younger Varyans to act.

For the past twelve years, Mother Indira has been the main instructor of Leviathan Warband, but runs her own separate training regimen for those in the Seminary with the highest recorded ether pools. This program, known as the Circle, is a highly intensive five-year long curriculum that aims to teach pupils with a highly potent and unique form of ether the skills needed to successfully subjugate and summon demons. She accepts very few students into this program, and from those who made the cut, the vast majority were cut at some point after being judged to "not have what it takes" by Mother Indira. In more than a decade, only two pupils out of dozens have shown the aptitude to complete their specialized training under her and graduate from the Circle-- those two young priests being Mother Tatiana of Warband Phoenix, who is now an ordained Inquisitor, and Father Dara of Warband Seraph, who one year prior disappeared from the Seminary and became an apostate shortly before Culmination.

Days after Warband Leviathan's culmination, she, along with most of the senior Seminary teaching staff, was called to the Elurian front.

Mother Indira's relationships:

Mother Viveca and Father Oren: @Scout @CollectorofMyst
To Viveca and Oren, Mother Indira was a teacher, confidant, and mentor. She was often overly hard with the two young Omestrian priests, instilling harsher punishments and giving them tougher assignments. When questioned as to why they were being treated differently, Indira told them that as Omestrians, they would always be seen as inferior to other races, and would thus have to work twice as hard as others to prove their worth. Beyond that, she sought to train them to always "be mindful", for any hint of faithlessness, any sign of them "straying from the path" could spell disaster for them. For years, day in and day out, she taught them how to properly enshroud themselves as devout Varyan priests, how to properly mask any feelings of faithlessness and how to appear as devout followers of the Ravenous Lord.

When it came to their shared Omestrian culture, she didn't engage in teaching them anything about their people, instead leaving them to figure that part out themselves. The one creed that she instilled in them was the following mantra:

"Deep within you there is a flame. Never allow it to go out."

Father Ilya: @Draken

Mother Indira had an especially strained relationship with the young Varyan priest. Perhaps it was her inexperience as an intructor at play, or her still-fresh childhood memories suffering at the hands of families like his, but she could not, no matter how much she tried, divorce her feelings as a former Omestrian slave from having to teach this son of a Varyan noble. She knew it wasn't her place to share her experiences with the boy, to tell him of how her hands were shattered by hammer and rod numerous times when she wasn't quick enough in doing a task, or how she had to watch her mother passed around to her lord's military friends like a whore-- no, her purpose was to teach this boy how to become an inquisitor. And that's what she did.

Ilya was often included in Viveca and Oren's "extracurricular activities", but for a different reason. She didn't do it as a way to make certain he was more adequately prepared to face a world that would look down on him, but for a more selfish reason-- she just didn't like him, and wanted the boy to suffer how she suffered. However, as the years passed, and Ilya showed himself to be an extraordinary pupil who continuously passed her tests and endured everything she threw at him, she suddenly found herself quietly respecting the boy and growing fond of him. After all, here was a boy who she made suffer the same physical punishments she did, and he faced them unflinchingly, without ever breaking.

These days, Ilya and Mother Indira are something near to close friends. Though they are more than a decade apart in age, they often drink together and discuss politics. She often felt some measure of guilt over how she allowed her own feelings towards him to affect her as an instructor, and now believes that she could have gotten the same results from him with less harsher methods.

Mother Tatiana @OppositionJ and Father Dara

Tatiana and Dara were the only students who had completed five years of specialized summoner's training under Mother Indira and managed to not only journey to the Black Glacier to claim a demon for themselves, but return with their lives. As such, she treasured her "two little dragons" above all else, and treated them like a doting mother-- always pushing them to their limits, never accepting failure, and being so fiercely protective of them and their gift that she forbid the other instructors from marring her hard work. Because of this, Tatiana and Dara were rarely seen on Gregoroth's training yard. Instead, the two spent their years at the Tower, attempting to become the empire's second summoners.

In Tatiana, Mother Indira found a surrogate daughter and apprentice. She viewed the young Lanostran as a true student, someone whom she would continue to train for decades to come, and the one who would eventually rise as Indira's successor. She hoped that Tatiana would one day become an instructor herself, and carry on her legacy by passing her teachings down to newer generations. This plan to continue to train the young priestess hit a roadblock after Indira was called to the Elurian front. Like many inquisitors and scientists, Indira was deeply interested in the wild land of El, but planned to travel there years after the subjegation was complete to do her research. She had no desire to slog through a warzone after all, and instead planned to send Dara to fight in her stead. After Dara disappeared however, Indira had no choice but to assist in the Elurian invasion herself.

Unlike Tatiana, Father Dara, the quiet but supremely gifted Protector of Warband Seraph, was not seen as a successor or work in progress, for the boy didn't have the proper aptitude for such things. Instead, Dara would be the "results" the Varyan Church wanted from Indira's training regimen. A gift to the high clerics, a powerful weapon for them to wield on the warfront while she focused on training Tatiana, the one she viewed as her true heir. Thus, when Dara suddenly disappeared days before his Culmination, it destroyed her well-laid plans. Even now, a year later, she longs to find him, for he is dangerous, not just to the empire, but to himself as well.

The Last Embers (Dark Steampunk/Fantasy)

@DrakeyOh yeah, definitely. Gregoroth would've disliked him immensely and probably would've fought for him to be transferred to another branch of the church, but Creid would have recognized Rodion's skill in machinery and would have protected him/help foster this skill.

The Last Embers (Dark Steampunk/Fantasy)

Father Creid's relationships:

The masked Inquisitor didn't seem to possess much in the form of emotional attachment to any of his students. He was of a light disposition, always there to hold a conversation or answer questions, his mood always on a level plain. But beyond this, nothing. In fact, it is difficult to remember him ever being angry, or sad, or excited about anything. Because of this, there was a strange sense of inhumanity about him (his stiff movements and artificial limbs dodn't help matters, of course). Creid's purpose was to impart his knowledge and make his trainees the greatest inquisitors he could. Unlike Gregoroth's method of sharpening pupils down until only iron remained, Creid preferred building his students up-- taking their own unique quirks, strengths and weaknesses-- and making them powerful and exceptional the way they were, warts and all. He strove to not just make them powerful in magic, but knowledgeable in as many aspects of the world as possible. Unlike other classes, it seemed as though he was equipping Warband Phoenix for something that didn't involve war or religion. He worked tirelessly to give his students strength and wisdom, but would disappeared as soon as the sessions were over. To see Creid on training-free days was rare.

Creid treated all his pupils the same, regardless of their skill. Even though he was in charge of teaching his students ether manipulation strengthening and honing their magical abilities, he kept no favorites. All of his students received the same amount of attention, no matter the size of their ether pools, or what truly lay in their hearts regarding the Church and Lord Varya.

The Last Embers (Dark Steampunk/Fantasy)

@DrakeyI don;t know if you were serious but I actually like the idea of two people who are incredibly close being able to sense each other's ether. :p

The Last Embers (Dark Steampunk/Fantasy)

@shylarahYeah, football field sounds fine. I was actually thinking it could be a bit bigger than that, like a mile? (is that actually bigger than a football field? I have no clue!)

I just didn't want it to be something insane like, "I'm in Omestris and I sense this person in the south of Lanostre! Let's go!"

The Last Embers (Dark Steampunk/Fantasy)

@The Angry GoatGood point! Completely forgot about his super speed thing. That'd certainly make the storytelling a bit awkward if he can just track people down in the blink of an eye.

@shylarah@Draken I don't think ether tracking, at least the way in which I envision it, should be a standard universal skill. I'm talking about sensing someone's unique "ether signature" and being able to track where they went, like a bloodhound-- as well as being able to have some awareness of strong ether signatures and where they're located (at least in a small area). I think having that skill available to everyone would be a bit much, and I feel like it'd be cool if only one of us had that skill and people depended on them to use it.

"...I mean, to draw on ether from other places Ziotea really has to have some idea of where it is."

Maybe I'm missing something, but wouldn't she just have to see where the ether is to draw from it? Like, use her sight? I'm confused. :(

But yeah, Ziotea might also be a good candidate to have this skill. So, either her or Hassan.

Fuck it, disregard what I wrote earlier. Let's make it so you both have it. There! :)

The Last Embers (Dark Steampunk/Fantasy)

Whoops, double post!

Also, @shylarah, is there anything else you need for Ziotea? I noticed you haven't posted her in the Characters section.

By the way, could everyone post all their relationship info in the Characters section as well? Even if it isn't finished? Thanks!