oreskahouse (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
oreskahouse) wrote2012-07-10 09:14 pm
oreskahouse) wrote2012-07-10 09:14 pm
Luck in the Shadows
[- OOC Information -]
Name: Siobhan
Do you play any other characters in Outer Divide? No
[- Character Information -]
Character Name: Lord Thero i Procepios
Fandom: Nightrunner
AU or OU: OU
Canon Point: Directly after the end of Casket of Souls
Journal:oreskahouse
Icon: http://www.dreamwidth.org/userpic/4043476/1659541
Appearance: Thero is a very thin, pale young man with dark brown, curly hair he wears long and usually braided. He tends to a little stubble and all his features are sharp enough to cut, so he might look a bit menacing if his constant expression wasn’t one of mildly disapproving confusion.
History: Thero was born an ordinary child to an ordinary family, but his abilities manifested strong and early, and he was soon presented at the Oreska House and taken as apprentice by the venerable and reputably eccentric wizard, Nysander. They didn’t mesh particularly well, but Nysander saw both great potential and great ego in the young wizard, and kept him under his tutelage in the hopes of teaching him some humility and perspective. Thero would have been happy to roll his eyes at his often irritating mentor, but Nysander also led the Watchers, an immense network of exciting individuals tasked with defending Skala and gathering information, and he found himself repeatedly in the middle of questionably legal and distinctly perilous shenanigans. Unfortunately, one of the best watchers was Seregil i Amata, Nysander’s previous and far preferred apprentice, and the tension between the two men ran high, especially after Thero wound up switching bodies with Seregil, among other misadventures. Eventually, his jealousy and spite left him susceptible to a whirlwind love affair with a beautiful sorceress who’d previously involved herself with both Nysander and Seregil’s then protege, Alec, and who was feeding information to Plenimaran necromancers. To some arguably degree, his misjudgement led to a successful invasion of the Oreska House, the deaths of many wizards, and Thero’s capture by the Plenimarans. He, along with Alec, was kidnapped as an intended sacrifice to raise the necromancer’s vicious death god. He managed to rescue Alec and readied himself to die, feeling it was only fair penance.
Instead, he was rescued in the same melee that led to his mentor’s death. Having learned a whole multitude of lessons, Thero took up leadership of the Watchers and even began involving himself directly in endeavors outside his study. He traveled with Seregil, Alec, and the Princess Klia to Aurenen to plea for aid in the war against Plenimar, threw himself into enemy territory to recover Alec from a Plenimaran alchemist, defended the Skalan capital and kingdom from dueling and murderous cabals and ancient magical evil at the same time, and won the love of the Princess Royal. He’s done pretty well.
Previous Game History: None
Personality: There was a time Thero was an intolerable little shit with a stick so far up his ass he occasionally found himself chewing on it. He’s grown up and relaxed some, but within the staggeringly uptight and antisocial young man was a moderately uptight and antisocial young man waiting to come out. Thero has managed to pick up some Nightrunner techniques in the way of dissembling and manipulation, but even his disguises are Thero in a different outfit, playing the brittle, annoying guy to his friends’ more dynamic roles. He’s always a little put out and confused that everyone thinks he’s boring. Comparisons to fish come up a lot. He’s better at getting along with children, especially as he’s picked up Nysander’s old habit of putting on cheerful displays of magic for their amusement. He’d have considered that a waste of power and just encouraging the irritating masses a few years ago, but now he has almost as much fun turning fruit into toys and making the plates fly around in formation as his admirers do enjoying it. He’s still better with an audience than an active conversational partner and he’s far too blunt and uncomprehending of “fun” as a concept to make much of a place for himself in polite society. Reporting to the royal family nearly ruined his sanity, certainly, even if it won him a princess. And while Thero would love to have dignity, the whole universe seems to conspire to make sure he’s not allowed.
Even those who prefer to refer to him as a cold fish, however, wouldn’t denigrate his power. Thero is one of the strongest practitioners of his generation, following a rift between Aurenen and Skala that prevented much mixing of human and ‘Faie blood for a few hundred years there. He’s as studious as he is talented and really at his happiest when toiling over fine points of magical theory for days at a time. It’d be a much better world for Thero if all the intrigues and necromantic plots and royals would just go bother someone else, though in that case he might actually bond physically with his desk chair. And Klia would probably have found someone else to propose to. When he’s actually got some leisure time away from researching whatever most recently threatens to topple the realm and send the world into chaos, he writes treatises about fine points of magical minutiae, with a little painting and manuscript illumination to lighten the mood. And writing love poetry, which he’d rather not admit to, even if Seregil says it’s rather good. After he stole it. Despite a softening of his youthful heedlessness under Nysander’s tutelage, he’s still a bit arrogant, and his thirst for knowledge is such that it occasionally trumps morality before he thinks about it too hard. Like when he might have accidentally fed a child’s trapped soul to a rat. Thero means well, but he’s a little too removed from the normal human experience and a little too wrapped up in his head for his own good. While he occasionally puts in some effort, he’s still only a beginner at enjoying himself. Stuff outside his workroom is either Watcher business or frivolity. He’s the guy who sulks through the whole story at the theater because they got the runes wrong during the wizard’s casting and expects everyone to want to hear all about the preparation of beetle carapaces for use in certain metal alteration spells. Aware, he ain’t.
And as much as he likes it in there, he does know intellectually that there’s a lot of fun stuff outside his own little wizardly world. Quite aside from all the interesting things one can learn amid the dullness at a noble’s party or the really interesting headache that comes of politics studded with assassination attempts, Thero may not make friends easily but he holds them very dear. Though he didn’t understand or appreciate his mentor until it was too late, Nysander ultimately taught him well and made a compassionate, good hearted man as well as a powerful wizard. As well as being concerned with the general populace sincerely (if distantly) to the point where it’s perfectly unfashionable, he constantly worries for his fellow Watchers. Almost as much as he scolds them, unavoidable as both their leader and the inevitable snottiest pain in the ass in the room. Seregil, Alec, and Micum in particular have a place in his heart, and Micum’s wife and children are so happy to have him as part of the family that it’s very perplexing. His fellow wizards are a little leery of him at times (something about contributing to an unspecified degree to death and destruction that tore away many of their own and their accumulated knowledge and magic), and he’s only just found an apprentice. While Mika struck him as a fine potential wizard and a sweet child, he knows the boy too little to feel more than generalized pride and affection. And then there’s Klia.
A wizard and a princess have never before married. Hell, no Oreska wizard has married, officially, though that vow of celibacy is strictly voluntary. But a wizard’s infertility is a boon for a princess who doesn’t want to risk disrupting the succession set in place by her older sister, the current queen finds them adorable, and eventually, Thero ran out of reasons they couldn’t possibly give themselves the go ahead to be happy. Thero fell in love with Klia while her served as her aide and advisor in Aurenen, supported her frequently on the field of battle (though from the shadows, as Thero’s approximately the direct opposite of a warrior), and won his way into her affections nearly as quickly as she bulldozed his defenses. Even if she does get poisoned all the time and will die before he starts to show any age, he loves her very much.
Powers/Abilities: Thero is really only good at being a wizard. He’s an accomplished scion of the Oreska school of magic with a bit of unconventional training and is adept at everything from just thinking really hard until magic happens to elaborate setups involving varied apparatus and hourlong chants. He’s flexible. Thero’s personal unpleasantness almost offsets his magical skill, however, and he gets offended at unknowns. He’s supposed to know everything, and working fast wears him out to a dangerous extent. Oreska magic ultimately depends on the wizard’s own power. A necromancer draws from pain and death, an alchemist from elixers and ritual, but as heirs to Aurenfaie magic, Oreska wizards have only themselves to draw on. An overextended wizard can fall into total exhaustion and too much magic on a regular basis can destroy health and sanity. Oreska magic is only as showy as the caster means it to be, but includes hard-to-miss phenomena like manipulation of objects and forces (say, fire, giant rocks), limited mind-reading and tampering with senses, the formation of barriers, teleportation, transformation... Essentially, he’s a wizard, and the only damper on that is his own capacity. Which has not led to any kind of humility.
In practice, Thero's magical limits are more sneaky than abrupt. If he casts a transport spell across a great distance, he simply has to sit down and wait a few hours before he can attempt anything of the kind again. It won't work. A variety of small spells, however, or a sustained spell that draws on him continuously is more likely to end up knocking him out after a few hours or a stressful day. Overt magic like casting fires is simpler and less stressful than convoluted, subtle work like mindreading. He can work without any materials at all, but the less he has in the way of props, the more a spell takes out of him. Spells outside the Oreska tradition, though a point of pride, are far harder for him to sustain. While Thero is a young wizard and hasn't yet come into his full potential, he doesn't like admitting that and tries to do more than he can, so he spends a lot of time snoozing on his desk. Exhaustion and stress do most of the mental damage that can result from irresponsible use of magic, but when dealing with mind magic of any kind, there's additional danger. Strong sensation and other magical signatures have been known to do permanent harm, and older wizards do a lot to deserve reputations for eccentricity. There's some threat to the soul as well, poking at odd corners of magic. Necromancy can let fell things into the world and the caster, and Thero is freer with the idea of blood magic than the Oreska tends to be.
Possessions: Thero’s wearing a cream-colored tunic, a leather belt, leggings, and boots that reach to the mid-calf. He lacks for more reasonable outdoor clothing, but since he was taken from his study, a quill pen is jammed in his hair, several prepared but unused message sticks were in his pocket, and a quartz amulet ready for enchanting hung around his neck. He was wearing a single pearl earring (unusually fashionable for him, but Seregil teased him into it) and an onyx and silver ring, a gift from Klia.
Arrival: Waking up on the ship.
Reason for Playing: Thero is a character who works his way into the foreground without having to try. The author has confessed she only created him as a placeholding minor character, and soon he was one of the main heroes. I’m just as taken with his strange, unexpected charisma as she is. And given Thero’s experience coordinating a small army of spies, partaking in sharp-tongued diplomacy, attending to the aftermath of battles, and doing a whole lot of magic, he’s very useful even if he is an unusual pain in the ass.
[- Writing Samples -]
First person: In my experience, it is the carapace of the beetle which reacts most strongly with potent metals due to the conceptually continuous nature of the organ. Given how much of magic depends on the strength of mind and clarity of thought of the caster as well as the purity and correctness of the materials. Borrowing from the alchemical--
What?
No, it doesn’t get any more interesting. How could it possibly?
Now, if you’ll direct your attention to Lady Maldina i Kelmeer’s invaluable treatise on the intrinsic-
Seregil, I will turn you into a brick.
The intrinsic qualities of Sakor’s Bite, we can relate the properties of that unusual metal to the more commonly seen qualities of silver and gold on magical endeavors...
Third person: Thero’s long hair had escaped its braid over the course of the night’s work. The leather strip that had held it back had nearly dropped into the abalone shell where his herbal purification still smoldered, without his noticing. He had been too busy lately for his own research, and he’d thrown himself back into the game with perhaps too much wild enthusiasm. As a spindly brass scale inherited from Nysander whipped its trays up and down and the chalk runes he’d drawn on stretched silk began to sizzle through the fabric, he found himself forced to concede something might have been slightly wrong in his calculations.
Thero pulled a scrap of oiled red cloth from underneath a notebook and used it to cut the air supply to the herbs, then turned to quiet his scale. As his fingers brushed the metal, a burst of light and the smell of (oddly) rendered gelatin knocked him to the floor. As his vision cleared and he dabbed at his scorched robes balefully. A glance in a bronze mirror revealed that he’d once again burned off his eyebrows.
“Who needs eyebrows?” he observed to his reflection. Thero drew to his feet, tied his hair back again, and tapped the ashes out of the abalone. No one had shouted from downstairs and it wasn’t even dawn yet. “Probably needs more sage.”
Name: Siobhan
Do you play any other characters in Outer Divide? No
[- Character Information -]
Character Name: Lord Thero i Procepios
Fandom: Nightrunner
AU or OU: OU
Canon Point: Directly after the end of Casket of Souls
Journal:
oreskahouseIcon: http://www.dreamwidth.org/userpic/4043476/1659541
Appearance: Thero is a very thin, pale young man with dark brown, curly hair he wears long and usually braided. He tends to a little stubble and all his features are sharp enough to cut, so he might look a bit menacing if his constant expression wasn’t one of mildly disapproving confusion.
History: Thero was born an ordinary child to an ordinary family, but his abilities manifested strong and early, and he was soon presented at the Oreska House and taken as apprentice by the venerable and reputably eccentric wizard, Nysander. They didn’t mesh particularly well, but Nysander saw both great potential and great ego in the young wizard, and kept him under his tutelage in the hopes of teaching him some humility and perspective. Thero would have been happy to roll his eyes at his often irritating mentor, but Nysander also led the Watchers, an immense network of exciting individuals tasked with defending Skala and gathering information, and he found himself repeatedly in the middle of questionably legal and distinctly perilous shenanigans. Unfortunately, one of the best watchers was Seregil i Amata, Nysander’s previous and far preferred apprentice, and the tension between the two men ran high, especially after Thero wound up switching bodies with Seregil, among other misadventures. Eventually, his jealousy and spite left him susceptible to a whirlwind love affair with a beautiful sorceress who’d previously involved herself with both Nysander and Seregil’s then protege, Alec, and who was feeding information to Plenimaran necromancers. To some arguably degree, his misjudgement led to a successful invasion of the Oreska House, the deaths of many wizards, and Thero’s capture by the Plenimarans. He, along with Alec, was kidnapped as an intended sacrifice to raise the necromancer’s vicious death god. He managed to rescue Alec and readied himself to die, feeling it was only fair penance.
Instead, he was rescued in the same melee that led to his mentor’s death. Having learned a whole multitude of lessons, Thero took up leadership of the Watchers and even began involving himself directly in endeavors outside his study. He traveled with Seregil, Alec, and the Princess Klia to Aurenen to plea for aid in the war against Plenimar, threw himself into enemy territory to recover Alec from a Plenimaran alchemist, defended the Skalan capital and kingdom from dueling and murderous cabals and ancient magical evil at the same time, and won the love of the Princess Royal. He’s done pretty well.
Previous Game History: None
Personality: There was a time Thero was an intolerable little shit with a stick so far up his ass he occasionally found himself chewing on it. He’s grown up and relaxed some, but within the staggeringly uptight and antisocial young man was a moderately uptight and antisocial young man waiting to come out. Thero has managed to pick up some Nightrunner techniques in the way of dissembling and manipulation, but even his disguises are Thero in a different outfit, playing the brittle, annoying guy to his friends’ more dynamic roles. He’s always a little put out and confused that everyone thinks he’s boring. Comparisons to fish come up a lot. He’s better at getting along with children, especially as he’s picked up Nysander’s old habit of putting on cheerful displays of magic for their amusement. He’d have considered that a waste of power and just encouraging the irritating masses a few years ago, but now he has almost as much fun turning fruit into toys and making the plates fly around in formation as his admirers do enjoying it. He’s still better with an audience than an active conversational partner and he’s far too blunt and uncomprehending of “fun” as a concept to make much of a place for himself in polite society. Reporting to the royal family nearly ruined his sanity, certainly, even if it won him a princess. And while Thero would love to have dignity, the whole universe seems to conspire to make sure he’s not allowed.
Even those who prefer to refer to him as a cold fish, however, wouldn’t denigrate his power. Thero is one of the strongest practitioners of his generation, following a rift between Aurenen and Skala that prevented much mixing of human and ‘Faie blood for a few hundred years there. He’s as studious as he is talented and really at his happiest when toiling over fine points of magical theory for days at a time. It’d be a much better world for Thero if all the intrigues and necromantic plots and royals would just go bother someone else, though in that case he might actually bond physically with his desk chair. And Klia would probably have found someone else to propose to. When he’s actually got some leisure time away from researching whatever most recently threatens to topple the realm and send the world into chaos, he writes treatises about fine points of magical minutiae, with a little painting and manuscript illumination to lighten the mood. And writing love poetry, which he’d rather not admit to, even if Seregil says it’s rather good. After he stole it. Despite a softening of his youthful heedlessness under Nysander’s tutelage, he’s still a bit arrogant, and his thirst for knowledge is such that it occasionally trumps morality before he thinks about it too hard. Like when he might have accidentally fed a child’s trapped soul to a rat. Thero means well, but he’s a little too removed from the normal human experience and a little too wrapped up in his head for his own good. While he occasionally puts in some effort, he’s still only a beginner at enjoying himself. Stuff outside his workroom is either Watcher business or frivolity. He’s the guy who sulks through the whole story at the theater because they got the runes wrong during the wizard’s casting and expects everyone to want to hear all about the preparation of beetle carapaces for use in certain metal alteration spells. Aware, he ain’t.
And as much as he likes it in there, he does know intellectually that there’s a lot of fun stuff outside his own little wizardly world. Quite aside from all the interesting things one can learn amid the dullness at a noble’s party or the really interesting headache that comes of politics studded with assassination attempts, Thero may not make friends easily but he holds them very dear. Though he didn’t understand or appreciate his mentor until it was too late, Nysander ultimately taught him well and made a compassionate, good hearted man as well as a powerful wizard. As well as being concerned with the general populace sincerely (if distantly) to the point where it’s perfectly unfashionable, he constantly worries for his fellow Watchers. Almost as much as he scolds them, unavoidable as both their leader and the inevitable snottiest pain in the ass in the room. Seregil, Alec, and Micum in particular have a place in his heart, and Micum’s wife and children are so happy to have him as part of the family that it’s very perplexing. His fellow wizards are a little leery of him at times (something about contributing to an unspecified degree to death and destruction that tore away many of their own and their accumulated knowledge and magic), and he’s only just found an apprentice. While Mika struck him as a fine potential wizard and a sweet child, he knows the boy too little to feel more than generalized pride and affection. And then there’s Klia.
A wizard and a princess have never before married. Hell, no Oreska wizard has married, officially, though that vow of celibacy is strictly voluntary. But a wizard’s infertility is a boon for a princess who doesn’t want to risk disrupting the succession set in place by her older sister, the current queen finds them adorable, and eventually, Thero ran out of reasons they couldn’t possibly give themselves the go ahead to be happy. Thero fell in love with Klia while her served as her aide and advisor in Aurenen, supported her frequently on the field of battle (though from the shadows, as Thero’s approximately the direct opposite of a warrior), and won his way into her affections nearly as quickly as she bulldozed his defenses. Even if she does get poisoned all the time and will die before he starts to show any age, he loves her very much.
Powers/Abilities: Thero is really only good at being a wizard. He’s an accomplished scion of the Oreska school of magic with a bit of unconventional training and is adept at everything from just thinking really hard until magic happens to elaborate setups involving varied apparatus and hourlong chants. He’s flexible. Thero’s personal unpleasantness almost offsets his magical skill, however, and he gets offended at unknowns. He’s supposed to know everything, and working fast wears him out to a dangerous extent. Oreska magic ultimately depends on the wizard’s own power. A necromancer draws from pain and death, an alchemist from elixers and ritual, but as heirs to Aurenfaie magic, Oreska wizards have only themselves to draw on. An overextended wizard can fall into total exhaustion and too much magic on a regular basis can destroy health and sanity. Oreska magic is only as showy as the caster means it to be, but includes hard-to-miss phenomena like manipulation of objects and forces (say, fire, giant rocks), limited mind-reading and tampering with senses, the formation of barriers, teleportation, transformation... Essentially, he’s a wizard, and the only damper on that is his own capacity. Which has not led to any kind of humility.
In practice, Thero's magical limits are more sneaky than abrupt. If he casts a transport spell across a great distance, he simply has to sit down and wait a few hours before he can attempt anything of the kind again. It won't work. A variety of small spells, however, or a sustained spell that draws on him continuously is more likely to end up knocking him out after a few hours or a stressful day. Overt magic like casting fires is simpler and less stressful than convoluted, subtle work like mindreading. He can work without any materials at all, but the less he has in the way of props, the more a spell takes out of him. Spells outside the Oreska tradition, though a point of pride, are far harder for him to sustain. While Thero is a young wizard and hasn't yet come into his full potential, he doesn't like admitting that and tries to do more than he can, so he spends a lot of time snoozing on his desk. Exhaustion and stress do most of the mental damage that can result from irresponsible use of magic, but when dealing with mind magic of any kind, there's additional danger. Strong sensation and other magical signatures have been known to do permanent harm, and older wizards do a lot to deserve reputations for eccentricity. There's some threat to the soul as well, poking at odd corners of magic. Necromancy can let fell things into the world and the caster, and Thero is freer with the idea of blood magic than the Oreska tends to be.
Possessions: Thero’s wearing a cream-colored tunic, a leather belt, leggings, and boots that reach to the mid-calf. He lacks for more reasonable outdoor clothing, but since he was taken from his study, a quill pen is jammed in his hair, several prepared but unused message sticks were in his pocket, and a quartz amulet ready for enchanting hung around his neck. He was wearing a single pearl earring (unusually fashionable for him, but Seregil teased him into it) and an onyx and silver ring, a gift from Klia.
Arrival: Waking up on the ship.
Reason for Playing: Thero is a character who works his way into the foreground without having to try. The author has confessed she only created him as a placeholding minor character, and soon he was one of the main heroes. I’m just as taken with his strange, unexpected charisma as she is. And given Thero’s experience coordinating a small army of spies, partaking in sharp-tongued diplomacy, attending to the aftermath of battles, and doing a whole lot of magic, he’s very useful even if he is an unusual pain in the ass.
[- Writing Samples -]
First person: In my experience, it is the carapace of the beetle which reacts most strongly with potent metals due to the conceptually continuous nature of the organ. Given how much of magic depends on the strength of mind and clarity of thought of the caster as well as the purity and correctness of the materials. Borrowing from the alchemical--
What?
No, it doesn’t get any more interesting. How could it possibly?
Now, if you’ll direct your attention to Lady Maldina i Kelmeer’s invaluable treatise on the intrinsic-
Seregil, I will turn you into a brick.
The intrinsic qualities of Sakor’s Bite, we can relate the properties of that unusual metal to the more commonly seen qualities of silver and gold on magical endeavors...
Third person: Thero’s long hair had escaped its braid over the course of the night’s work. The leather strip that had held it back had nearly dropped into the abalone shell where his herbal purification still smoldered, without his noticing. He had been too busy lately for his own research, and he’d thrown himself back into the game with perhaps too much wild enthusiasm. As a spindly brass scale inherited from Nysander whipped its trays up and down and the chalk runes he’d drawn on stretched silk began to sizzle through the fabric, he found himself forced to concede something might have been slightly wrong in his calculations.
Thero pulled a scrap of oiled red cloth from underneath a notebook and used it to cut the air supply to the herbs, then turned to quiet his scale. As his fingers brushed the metal, a burst of light and the smell of (oddly) rendered gelatin knocked him to the floor. As his vision cleared and he dabbed at his scorched robes balefully. A glance in a bronze mirror revealed that he’d once again burned off his eyebrows.
“Who needs eyebrows?” he observed to his reflection. Thero drew to his feet, tied his hair back again, and tapped the ashes out of the abalone. No one had shouted from downstairs and it wasn’t even dawn yet. “Probably needs more sage.”