I'm a-okay with moving away from the IP. It's true the comic is what drew me here, but the concept as a whole is what I think we all like.
What's more, by moving more into original material, people who aren't familiar with the comics will have an easier time. I think as long as nobody's character is invalidated or made to change, most of us would be happy to continue.
Sobriquets: The Muse. The Fairest. Collector of Songs.
Appearance: A fair young man of slight build and flawless features. Able carries a spear whose shining head hums like a struck glass. The haft is quite long, and made of stunningly pale and straight driftwood.
Aspect: SONG A form of art, true, but Song has also been used throughout human history(in most worlds) to pass along knowledge and wisdom. It may express oral history, and contains an aspect of magical knowledge as well. Song can be used to evoke emotions, and move the hearts and minds of those who hear it. It makes for a bearer who inspires joy, and whom others follow happily.
World: Heimark. A world defined by bitter, cold salt water and a multitude of rocky islands. Resources are fairly scarce, and one of the most precious is wood, which is absolutely necessary for the building of ships to cross the oceans. Many people double as raiders in addition to whatever trade they take on their home islands.
The people of Heimark are resilient and independent by nature. They are excellent shipwrights, and hold a vessel in high esteem, considered to be a credit to its home island.
Ship building is assisted by shamans who work with wood spirits, called wudwyrds. Traditionally, only one tree is cut down for a ship, though salvaged wood can be used(with great deference). Such driftwood, however, is considered quite valuable, because of how rarely the sea returns what it takes. This tradition ensures that no tree that plays host to a wudwyrd is cut needlessly, and also preserves the spirit as a singular entity in the completed vessel. A ship with a wudwyrd can always find the way back to any island it has visited, and can steer itself if needs must(though they typically prefer not to).
Race: Human
Legacy: Able was born to a small village on his home island of Briige. His parents were quite poor, and when a shaman who was traveling through took notice of him, they were happy to believe he would live a better life as an apprentice. What they did not understand was that the old man(name of Hroki) desired Able for his beauty and youth. He learned from his new master, but was loved by him as well, and as Able grew older, the wise man could not bear to see it. Besotted by the youth, the shaman turned to deep magic that even he did not properly understand, and entreated Time and Change themselves to refrain from touching Able. He was made to prove his worth and love, through trials that Able knew nothing of, but by the time he succeeded, and Able was finally spared the ravages of Time, and the fickle gifts of Change, he was a young man, and the shaman grieved the loss of his childhood.
Able outlived Hroki, and all those around him. He sought employ, with his new gifts, as a soldier and raider aboard a ship out of his homeland. He worked well enough for a time, but found that he could not train his body to become any stronger through natural means, and was weaker than hid fellows.
In a far flung land, he found knowledge from a monastery of monks who knew the secrets of transcending their physical limitations. Through meditation and force of will, Able learned to overcome the baser parts of his mind and body that, in a normal man, prevented one from harming themselves. Unable to suffer harm himself, Able could use these techniques to achieve superhuman strength and speed. Still, his body had its limits, and he sought power through his spirit.
Able lived on. He continued his study of magic, but lived primarily as a strange, hermitic nomad, and generally lost interest in the conflicts between islands. He returned frequently to the monastery where he first learned his greatest physical gifts, to further meditate and consider the mysteries of the world. It may have been inevitable that he discovered a key to divinity on his own, but fate had another plan.
Heimark was broken into from the outside by a strange army, claiming to follow a god. The people of Heimark, being tough and contrary, fought back, and Able joined the conflict for the first time in decades. He joined with Elga, the Jarl of Briige, and fought under her as she first united the people of their world, and then fought to push back the invaders. Their resistance finally attracted the attention of the god himself, who stepped down from his throne in heaven to take to the field personally. He heard of a particular fighter who none of his disciples were able to slay, and sought him out on a rocky battlefield. The god’s blades sang as he fought, and in moments he had slain many of Able’s shield siblings, until finally he found the soldier whose body refused to be split by his swords. One of the Old Gods, or even a New God bearing a different Word may have been capable of stripping Able of his gifts, but this god and his power was only able to see them, reading his power like notes on a staff. He got too close, and Able plunged his indestructible fingers into the god’s forehead, plucking the star from his very brow. Holding a key to creation in his hand, Able looked back at the rest of the field as the god withered at his feet. The invaders and natives alike stared at him, expecting a new decree. Able turned the key, and stepped away from his world, into heaven.
The previous bearer of Song was a human man named Seig. He was called The Blind Maestro, or(behind his back) The Mad Maestro. He ran perhaps the most ordered of the New Gods' empires, and was prone to micro manage. He claimed he could hear the order of his sphere of control as Rhythm and Rhyme, and plucked out his own eyes, claiming they distracted him from it. It is argued by many theologians whether this action was a symptom, or the cause of his madness, but all agree that he became much worse after this.
He now believed he heard the Rhythm and Rhyme at all times, and found any disruption to it unbearable. And so he was known to personally flit about the multiverse, putting perceived errors to right.
Might: Able does not age, and(under normal circumstances) no change can be made to his body. He has mastered a technique to bypass the body’s resistance to using its full potential, and has a fair understanding of magic(enhanced by the Aspect of his Key). With his Aspect, he can read and understand magic that is affecting any object or person, much like reading music. Given effort and time, he can edit such magic as well by, to keep the metaphor, moving notes around.
Able can uncover, and even restore lost things by finding them preserved in Song.
The invaders of Heimark were stranded when their god lost his Key, but most of them would be willing to obey its current bearer, should he return to collect them. Able entered heaven alone, however, and at present has no followers to his name.
The empire of the God-King Seig is controlled by an efficient army of bureaucrat-soldiers who kept the Rhythm and Rhyme of the worlds moving. They were collectively called The Orchestra. Though far from well liked, they are generally considered benevolent, if meddlesome.
Seig's predilection for overseeing the details personally has left the Orchestra with a simplistic hierarchy, and nothing much in the way of a chain of command. Seig is known to have disappeared, but as the key that controlled his army's interplanar travel is now in another's hands, the news of his actual death has not left Heimark. The Orchestra is still able to travel between established worlds, but cannot create such permanent openings.
Path: Able seeks lasting companionship with anyone who might be an equal. He has long since withdrawn from society, having tired of the sorrow of outliving those close to him. He is new to Heaven and the multiverse at large, and wishes to see it, and what others have made of it.
I think a better distillation of Able’s goal(though I think this is something he'll realize as he matures as a god) is peace and cooperation between the gods. So he and Monica definitely are a good bet.
Having recently returned from the first of his mysterious sojourns into the realms of the gods, Able sat alone on a beach, contemplating the meaning of Divinity. Wishing(as gods do) to exert his will on the world, he stretched out his hand, and called for something long forgotten to reveal itself to him. In its turn, the sea roiled before him and spat upon the sand a length of old, bleached wood. It was a mast to a ship, long lost to the sea, but preserved through the Song that Able could wield at his will. It still held the old iron fittings for the sail and the ropes that it once held.
Able considered the unusual gift, and decided to exert his will again, though this time he chose to do so through another. With his great might, he lifted the mast onto his shoulder, and carried it with him. In this strange manner, he traveled from town to town, until he found an artisan whose work satisfied him. Able dropped the mast on the artisan's doorstep, and bade him craft great weapons from it. The artisan inspected the mast, and the iron fittings, and set to work.
From the wood, he made a haft to a spear, as well as a hammer. Also, he made a two bows, one an ordinary long bow, and the other a strange curved thing that he made upon Able's description. The iron, imbued with the bones of great animals, was reforged into a spear head, a hammer head, and a short sword. Lastly, what wood remained was rendered into planks, and formed into twelve round shields.
Able, unknown to the artisan, composed a great ballad for each of the weapons, and a single such song for the shields as a whole. In this way, he imbued them with power, and by spreading the songs he wrote, he also helped to preserve them all.
The hammer stayed with the artisan, who used it to create still more wonders. The sword was given to Elga, the Jarl with whom Able fought to kill the invading god Seig. The bows were given to a pair of brothers who Able met in his travels(a story for another time), and Able kept the spear himself. The shields were scattered around Heimark, where their legends grow to this day.
Hey, if Orren has been around for a long time, do you think he had any relationship with Seig(Able’s predecessor). There's some info on him in the CS after I updated it.
Hey, if Orren has been around for a long time, do you think he had any relationship with Seig(Able’s predecessor). There's some info on him in the CS after I updated it.
As to the name: it's a weird case, to my understanding, the name is common in Scandinavia now, but as a result of Christianity, which shouldn't play a role here, but I like the name and have stuck with it.
