Strange Rodent — Roleplayer Guild

OUT OF ACTION:

Name: Gareth Sigsby

Age: 17

Time in Shibuya: 5 months

Nationality: Australian

Appearance (The image works, but use the description here for details.): Wears whatever's comfortable/utilitarian, ie. Cargo pants, cheap tshirt, and a 60 liter backpack. Has a lower than average face, which is marred further by the grime constantly covering it. Well-muscled, and can probably win some money arm-wrestling. Short brown hair, to avoid it catching in machines.

Personality: Curious, Intelligent, and generally uninterested in people. He's socially underdeveloped, due to spending all his free time around broken cars & shit like that, as opposed to people. An existentialist. Also a bit of a slob. He doesn't wash often, and his clothes are usually 'clean enough'.

Hobbies & Interests (besides engineering): Violin, Dark Souls, Cooking, Chemistry, Poetry and Lyricism, and Philosophy.

Bio: Gareth was raised by a small time mechanic living in Melbourne. When he was young he discovered an interest and a natural talent with machines. By 10 he had made several air rifles, a hydraulic arm for heavy lifting, and a mouse bot he hoped to enter Robot Wars with. At 12 he had started apprenticing under his father for a modest wage, and at 16 he entered TAFE to study engineering even further. His studies naturally led him to Japan as an exchange student. He'd already become quite accomplished at basic engineering, so he was to study robotic engineering there. AI and shit. He honestly expected to be placed into a more prodigious school, but he'll make do. He'll also have to make a trip to From Software's office soon.

Hey, just letting you all know that I'm here. I've got a sheet waiting for acceptance from the GM right now, so it shouldn't be long before I post up.

Actually, you know what? I'll chuck my sheet here, too. Pass it by you guys as well. 

Nar Zalaam, Pyromancer Maestro

Titles: Some call him "The Wandering Pyromancer", though this isn't formal.
Age: He stopped counting at 28, as he had better things to do. He looks mid to late forties.
Species: Human
Equipment:

A book which details the life of a legendary pyromancer named Ishamel. Through study and understanding, one may distill spells from its pages. The longer the passage, the more powerful the spell. 

It is bound in fairly plain looking leather, with vellum pages. It's not written in one singular hand, or using one pen. Rather, it's many different styles, languages, inks, and content. The only similarity they bear is how poetic they are. Even the non-poem writings possess a certain unmistakable fluency and descriptiveness.

Some passages relate to Ishamel's relationship with the deep, however. Nar has developed some theories around this. He's named it "Low Fire", and he thinks it will burn far below 0C, and it will come from despair. The first is obvious, but generally pyromancy feeds off the stronger emotions like anger or love. Despair is strong, but in all the wrong ways, and could potentially fuel a freezing flame from deep within one's soul.

Wandering Kit A backpack full of things Nar could use on a long trek. It's a rather extensive list, due to just how long he's spent developing it.
Quarterstaff A cheap, durable, and deadly weapon for when pyromancy is impractical. It's ~9' long, 1" wide, and 1 1/2" thick piece of oak. He has been trained in it by peasants in exchange for money while he traveled, and is quite handy with it. Of course, he will prefer to use pyromancy where possible. The weapon itself is easily capable of shattering bones, so long as there isn't steel in the way. Because of this, he uses it mainly in defense from wild animals.
Robes These robes are more of an amalgamation of different fashions from around the world than one particular piece of clothing. They're relatively short, only going to knee height. Of course, he has some very sturdy boots and pants under it. It's mostly optimised for practicality.
Spell skills:

Pyromancy: This shouldn't come as a surprise. While his life has been a cluster of different events, pyromancy has been the singular constant. After his duel with the knight, there has never been a moment in his life where pyromancy hasn't been there for him. Strangely, he hasn't become consumed by the power it offers, as so many are. 

His pyromancy comes in two main varieties, which he has named Ishamel and Nar. Very creative. 
   Ishamel tends to be very focused and efficient. At times it almost feels like it's holding back. The fire burns intensely hot, and is conjured by speaking words from the Book of Ishamel while contemplating your understanding of them. 
   On the other hand, Nar tends to be much more wild, but still far more focused than most pyromancy. It always feels like it's being held back, and can easily be identified and separated from most pyromancy. It tends to blow things up a bit.
Other skills:
Study: If there was something he would put his skill at pyromancy down to, it would be this. He has become very skilled at finding the right information for the job at hand, whether this be in a library, book, situation, or person.
Traveling: One might not consider this a skill. Nar would beg to differ. If one can travel as much as he has within the time he has, it definitely is a skill. He is accustomed to using a map and compass, packing light, walking (so much walking), sailing, and learning local languages and dialects to a level that allows survival. Even finding forest food when none other is available.
Communication: He is very used to communicating his ideas to others and understanding what others are trying to say. He has Taught many people and been taught by many people, and that is the root of this skill. He learns and teaches quickly as a result of this.
Training:
Nar has been trained by uncountable tutors in the art of pyromancy to such a degree that those who are beholding it are spellbound (not by rule, for obvious reasons). Chief among those tutors are the Old Man and the Book of Ishamel. He can weave firestorms the size of warships, or place a singular point of super hot fire exactly where it needs to be.
Affiliation: He isn't affiliated with any order, religion, or country in particular. Although, he has a notable distaste for the inelegance of the Order of Fire. He is of the belief that they don't know how to properly control themselves. He agrees with some of their ideology, but not their practice.
Personality: Nar has a personality that is brimming with a youthful curiosity, though it has been tempered by age. To elaborate, he will pursue anything and everything that interests him with an utmost dedication, but use the wisdom he's gathered over the years to guide himself.

He tends to find himself lost in contemplation of fire when he has a spare moment, especially when there is fire present. Campfires aren't for sharing stories, singing, or cooking. They're for discovering anything at all about the nature of fire. Because of this he has a very deep understanding of his art, and how it affects other objects. He also tends to let of a contemplative air, which most people find quite contrary to his standing as a maestro pyromancer. He also performs startlingly well under pressure, only losing a little bit of control. On the flip side, this 'zoning out' can cause him to miss some important things. While he will generally pick up on loud noises or large movements, he may miss smaller details. This isn't helped by his age, either.

He loves a good jest, and will often give cryptic answers to questions for shits and gigs. Even if they could be answered in a few concise sentences. He's also able to find the funny viewpoint on a given situation in a slightly absurdist manner. This has led to some people feeling alienated by him laughing at their suffering, but he's not really of a mind to care about that. 

He views mistakes as learning opportunities, although some of the mistakes he's made have really ruined some people's lives, and he struggles to move past that. He will actively try to reduce collateral as thoroughly as he possibly can. Although, if he is unable to do this he suffers a guilty streak, causing him to run from the problem. He knows he shouldn't run from it, but this only serves to cause more guilt.
History
He usually starts his story with the day his gift unveiled itself, so I'll do that. He was the eldest sibling in an upper class merchant family, and he had mistakenly offended a Knight. He must've been having a bad day, because he challenged Nar to a duel. The knight was wearing plate mail, and Nar was wearing no armour. The knight had a sword, and Nar was lucky to have a stick. Nar wouldn't take this without a fight, however. Within seconds he was bested, and as naturally as breathing, his rage rose out of his fist, and became fire. By the end of the fight, the knight had a cheek melted off, and Nar had some nasty cuts. 

The surge of power interested Nar. He'd never experienced anything quite like this. He spent the next five years studying everything on pyromancy he could get his hands on. When he ran out of reading material, he watched fires and studied the emotions it brought. Every pyromancer that came through Kron Nesis was hired to tutor Nar, and by nineteen he had made a small name for himself as a young scholar of his art. 

All too soon, he had exhausted his resources on pyromancy. The teachers had no more time, the books only said so much, and his hearth fire was evoking the same emotions over and over and over. He figured the best way forward was to travel the world, and collect some piece of knowledge from each area. And so he set off with a sum of money, some clothes, and some food. He headed north out of Tarantis, towards Vesh. Unfortunately, he was never much of a spendthrift and had spent most of his money by the time he reached Vesh. He decided he'd work in the farmhouses along the way for food and board.

In one farm, he met an elderly couple and their thirteen children. The youngest was called Fiona, and was the same age as Nar. She cared for her parents while all the other siblings worked in the fields, kitchens, or forests. Nar decided to stay longer here, as he had nowhere better to be. On top of that, he was interested in Fiona. He hadn't been interested in something this way since he discovered pyromancy six years ago, and in the small amount of time in a day when they were both free, Nar and Fiona grew closer. It took longer than Nar would've liked, but they became lovers. 

One night, when they were... doing their deed in the forest, Nar's pyromancy reared its ugly head. From his pores poured fire instead of sweat. He didn't feel the heat, and only noticed when Fiona began to scream in pain. She had blackened skin all over, and some of it was smoking. He carried her to her parents farm, put her on the doorstep, and ran. His guilt was stronger than his love in every way, and his will was stronger than his muscles. He kept running until he passed out.

He woke up in a wagon, covered in blankets, but shivering. He was deathly sick, and drifted in and out of consciousness all the way to Urland, where he soon found out he was to be sold off as a slave on the black market. It was his first major scale pyromancing, and it went wonderfully. He had managed to burn everybody around him to death within seconds. As an added bonus, he was able to mitigate property damage to some faint blackening. After about a month in Urland, he met an Ithell Scholar who specialised in the study of the stars. This scholar was carrying a certain book that Nar had assumed nonexistent until now. The Book of Ishamel. After a few days of hopeless pestering, Nar managed to get him drunk enough to wager it against the entire Zalaam family fortune in a game of dice. Fortunately, lady luck was smiling on him that day, and he won by a narrow 12 points. He was finally in possession of the most rare book on pyromancy in history. He spends the next few years holed up in Urland, doing nothing but studying The Book of Ishamel. The insights he gains are impressive, and he makes a significant name for himself. People had begun to actively seek him out as a tutor. This proved useful to him, because he was able to legally earn money through pyromancy. 

The student that impressed him most was a young human named Tetheras Pessoa. He had something that Nar could only describe as a gift. Teth had a huge amount of raw power he could tap in to, but not too much control. They spent a few months in Urland before shipping out to Ithell at the behest of the mages guild. During these months, and on the way there, Teth developed his grasp on pyromancy so quickly that Nar was almost ready to name him an equal. They had daily sparring sessions aboard the ship, and while Nar still managed to win most of them, Teth would consistently slip through Nars defenses. The sparring made the captain nervous, but they were both confident enough to quell flames before they did any significant damage to anything.

Nar noticed that over time, Teth would grow more reckless. He was growing more aggressive as time wore on, but Nar thought nothing of it. In hindsight, this was a very bad idea. As it turned out, there is an affliction that plagues skilled, yet uneducated pyromancers: Fire fever. It causes the afflicted to become increasingly more power hungry. It drives them to burn everything around them, just to watch the beauteous flames. Nar had never faced it before, so he didn't know to look out for it.

After four months in Ithell, they had both learned much. Nar had refined his pyromancy to heights he hadn't dreamed of, and Teth had never been far behind him. One day, not entirely out of the blue, Teth was found burning a supply ship from Urland. As Teth's mentor, Nar was asked to deal with the situation. So Nar went down to the docks. He forced the fire Teth had started to die down, to which Teth responded with more fire. Naturally, this led to a fight. Teth had totally forsaken his defense, though. This made it incredibly easy for Nar. With one hand he warded the flames from the dock, and with the other he fired off a beam of intensely hot fire. He meant only to his Teth's arm, but alas, Teth was moving too much and took it straight into the gut.

He wasn't happy with himself, naturally. If he caught this earlier on, he could've saved Teth. Instead, Teth was dead by his hand. As he is accustomed to doing, he ran from his problems. He made a brief announcement of his departure before stealing a rowboat and heading north. And so the next leg in his journey saw him hopelessly lost at sea. This was a period of massive growth for his mind (which he credits in part to sunstroke). He had several revelations while lying in a tiny rowboat, clutching the Book of Ishamel. The most profound being Low Fire. He hypothesised on the existence of a third flame type based on Ishamel's relationship with the night. When he had nothing better to do he would sit and think on despair, and how it would power a flame. The days saw nothing but him, the Book, and the sun. The nights saw something quite different, though. The stars were eyes to see his elaborate displays of exquisite firecraft. Bolts of flame licked wavering strokes around the boat, boiling any water that happened to come into contact with it. Perhaps most strangely, words rang through the air. 

This is how he was seen by a small fishing town who lived on a coast in the north. They sent a longboat to pick him up, and he was taken in. They nurtured him back to health out of the kindness of their hearts (to this day, Nar has not forgotten their kindness. He means to pay them back in full next time he finds himself even remotely close to the north). When he had returned to health, an old man who wore a blindfold and a raven feather cloak showed up in the village. Nobody knew who he was, but he was asking for Nar. 

The old man turned out to be an old fire wizard from the far north. He allegedly had family ties to Ishamel, and felt the Book's presence. He brought Nar to his homestead, and taught him the north's take on pyromancy. They spent every spare hour studying the Book: at first as teacher and student, and after time as equals. Nar has no idea how long he spent there, but it was long enough. On the last day Nar was there, the Old Man removed his blindfold to reveal a completely melted face and scalp. He told Nar to be careful with fire, and make sure it doesn't consume him as it does so many others. (I can't do justice to how profound this was to Nar. He had never seen under the blindfold before, and it had just seemed to go unnoticed after a certain point.).

The Old Man, after revealing his face and warning Nar of the internal danger of fire, requested that he deliver a package to Curael Endir, in Illvandrin. The journey there was cold, long, and somewhat boring, so I'll skip over it. When he arrived at the forest entrance he got chills. He'd heard of how the forest will attack those who enter if they mean harm, and he was entirely unsure about how it'd react to his pyromancy. Much to his relief, it held no objections. He'd never seen such a magnificent forest, and spent the first few days getting lost in its beauty, before stumbling across a scorched area. It was here he realised that while fire can be destructive, it is also a natural force. It's only a problem because humans make it one.

In Curael Endir he was treated as an outsider, which he wasn't used to. Finding the person he had to deliver the package to took weeks of constant detective work, but when he found him it turned out to be another student of the Old Man. The package was just a few rocks, but the other student knew what was really going on. Nar had been sent as eyes for the Old Man, so he might check up on his student (It was only now that Nar knew the Old Man could see through others' eyes. Perhaps he was more than a pyromancer?). Nar spent as little time here as he could get away with. There was something that kept him on edge.

Next, his travels brought him westward. He planned on going through the archclericy, and through Eamonvale. His goal was to get to the Darkeene Protectorate. Of course, something surpassing odd happened on the way. Due to a battle he'd heard of, he gave the Fool's Pass a wide berth. This turned out to be much more wise than he could've anticipated. As he looked upon it all he could see were magical storms, melting the souls out of those who were caught in it. Even at this distance, Nar felt a slight pressure from it. He had no doubt he could protect himself from it for a few minutes, but there was no way he would last longer than that. The sheer power on display made him realise just how close he had come to death. The amount of wasted magic did bother him, though. Whoever created that storm was taking out the army, sure, but he was doing it in a way that would wipe out thousands of civilians. He felt hollow as he wondered if Fiona died from this, or from Nar's burns. The image of the storm haunts him to this day. He wonders if that type of magic could offer some insights on Low Fire, based on the utter despair he could feel within the storm, much like how you feel the charged air in a thunderstorm.

With a newfound lust for Low Fire, he traveled south to the Darkeene Protectorate. He was fully aware that they had very few mages there, but he wanted the opinion of a scientist. He figured that finding out the physical requirements would help immensely. Unfortunately, the scientists had nothing groundbreaking to say. Doubtless they helped, just not as much as Nar had hoped. Slightly disappointed, he made his way back east through the war torn mountains. He didn't have much to fear from soldiers. Humans burn.

And now we catch up with the present, where he has made his way back to Kron-Nesis. Further still, into Tarantis. The first thing he sees is two knights duking it out in what Nar assumes to be an honour duel.

Theme:Burn the Witch, by Radiohead

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