Out of Character:
Basics
Name - Ashiakin Xan-ris Azzarak
Sex - Male
Race - Tap-Infused Human
Age - Ancient
Hair - White
Eyes - Blue
Height - 6'0''
Weight - 170 lbs
Appearance
Ashiakin is tall, thin and ever-graceful in his movements. Most would hesitate to call him handsome by traditional standards, but he has severe, complex features that many find compelling. Almost of his skin is a pale white that sometimes seems to glow like the surface of the moon (except for a few areas that are a cold, dead blue--his nails, his lips, his eyes.) His hair is straight and dazzling white, cut so that it touches the tips of his shoulders. It looks as if it were crafted from thin, silky strands of snow and ice. He is almost always clad in stylish, expensive clothes of silky blues and austere whites, but he carries a discolored cloak to conceal himself from curious eyes if he needs to move about without being seen.
Possessions
Ashiakin's arsenal of weapons currently includes a recurved composite bow of ulder wood and stone golem hide, several bow strings, a quiver of fifty barbed arrows, a mythril long sword, two mythril long knives, and twelve mythril shurikens. He owns two magical artifacts: Hel's Armlet, which allows the wearer the option of enchanting any attack with ice, and a Firesbane Amulet, which briefly grants the wearer invulnerability to fire but must be recharged for long periods of time. Freya, Ashiakin's snow hawk familiar, accompanies Ashiakin when he does not have her set to other tasks. She has no abilities of her own, but the pair share a telepathic link and can look through one each other's eyes whenever they wish. He also a little plastic alligator that squeaks when you mash it's belly (edited for accuracy to please Godhand).
Biology
Ashiakin is immortal in the sense that his physical appearance will never alter for as long as he lives. Due to the strange circumstances of his creation, he simply does not know how long he will live. After researching the subject, he estimates that he has lived for over six hundred years, minus a ten thousand year period of forced hibernation after the War of the Tap. He is aware that he can be slain in combat just like any mortal, that he is immune to disease, and that most poisons only have a mild effect on him. Being an ice elemental, Ashiakin is vastly more vulnerable to fire than a normal person.
Mysterious winds follow Ashiakin wherever he goes. They are never very strong, but subtle and unnaturally cold. He seems capable of summoning and silencing them on command, mostly using them as theater. Ashiakin is more graceful and slightly quicker than most humans. His strength, however, is less than that of most average mortals. His wounds also heal unusually fast, so that he can recover from a life-threatening injury in about a week, provided that he stays sequestered and does not move around.
Under Ashiakin's finger-nails are three-inch blades of ice that can be extended and retracted according to his whim. They currently have the strength of mythril. While he does not require food or water to live, he can ingest these things while suffering no harm. They would simply give him an extremely minor boost in energy. Ashiakin can gain much more energy by stealing warmth from living creatures. This is most easily accomplish by close physical contact of any sort, yet it can also be done more slowly by standing near the victim. If he steals too much warmth, the victim can die. This rarely happens, however, as it is a feat that can only be performed if the victim is weak-willed, physically coerced, or willing.
Skills
Stealth and Secrecy - Ashiakin can move quietly and unobtrusively, allowing him to spy, avoid confrontations, or simply avoid being seen.
Combat and Command - When fighting, Ashiakin is best with his bow, his accuracy having improved due to frequent practice. He has also bettered his swordplay, becoming adept if short of an expert. His skills with other weapons are mostly competent but unimpressive. Due to this, he prefers to avoid conflicts or dispatch of his enemies with arrows or trickery. Ashiakin is an above-average battlefield commander and can lead troops and strategize fairly effectively.
Politics and Demagoguery - Ashiakin is capable of quickly assessing political situations and turning them to his advantage. He is a skilled orator and can work his charms on national leaders and peasants alike.
Spies and Informants - Thanks to his renewed interests in the politics of Althanas, Ashiakin's network of spies and informants is starting to grow. He has agents all across Althanas, ranging from commoners to knights, wealthy merchants to aristocrats. His potion in Salvar's government has allowed him to increase the size of this network to a very respectable level, making him aware of events and dealings most are not.
Magic
Ice Elemental Magic - Ashiakin can create ice to be used as projectiles or otherwise. If there is water nearby, Ashiakin can freeze it and bend it to his will. He is capable of slightly more powerful ice magic this way, whether the water is already frozen or not.
Telekinesis - He can move anything nearby only using his mind, though the further something away and the heavier it is, the harder it is for him to move. He has full command of light objects--weapons, light armors, and the like--up to five hundred feet away, and can move heavy objects--things between a hundred and several hundred pounds--more slowly and less fluidly from about thirty feet away.
Ice Golems - Ashiakin can raise human-sized ice golems. With no corpses and no water-resources nearby, he can raise two of these creatures. With water resources or corpses to use as a base, he can raise three. With both of these things, a rare occurrence, four. They will do his bidding until they melt, are destroyed, or he releases them from service. He can craft their appendages to his liking--for instance, weapons of ice. While they have no magic, they will be skilled in combat in such a way that their levels add up to half of Ashiakin's current level. Two golems would be two level twos, three golems would be a level two and two level ones, etc. If he wishes them to, he can implant instructions in them to seek out certain people and speak messages to them or attempt to harm them--if they do not melt first.
History
In a time that most have now forgotten, a mortal human named Ranis Kyband Cikal was born into one of the lesser noble families of Calruk, a town in the land that is today known as Salvar. In a city where nobility was important, Ranis was always ashamed of his family's lack of power of money—he knew their noble titles meant little with their low standing. Ranis refused to play or even learn with the children of other houses while he grew up, studying in private varied subjects with worldly members of the court, learning fighting and battle tactics from the army and guards of the small kingdom. This special treatment served to even further advance Ranis's belief of his family’s long-denied superiority.
While he cared about his parents, he always felt they were timid and weak and in some way responsible for the lowliness of their noble family. Their weakness was confirmed in Ranis's eyes when they both died of the same illness within a week of each other, leaving him, their eldest child, control of the House. He was only sixteen years old. Over the course of the next ten years, Ranis applied all of the knowledge and battle tactics he had learned to advance the standing of his family. Many of things he did were illegal and immoral, but Ranis saw nothing wrong with such acts. To him, the crime of his family's low standing was the far greater tragedy.
After ten years of Ranis's leadership, House Cikal had risen up from the ranks of the lowly Houses to be the most powerful in the kingdom—second only to the King himself. But this caused the King to be wary of Ranis and his family. An investigation was conducted of Ranis and his activities, confirming the King's worst fears. Ranis had committed a number of horrible crimes to advance himself, having dabbled in black magic—searching for immortality, contact with demons, and attempting necromancy—in addition to having stolen money and supplies from other Houses and secretly murdering the lord and lady of a powerful family. The King, furious, punished the whole House without a trial. House Cikal was stripped of nobility, turning the whole family into commoners overnight. Ranis was banished from the kingdom forever. They gave him a small amount of supplies and sent him out into the snowy planes to find his death.
But Ranis did not die. He sought out refuge in the mountains now known by the name Ahyark, subsisting on meager amounts of food and delving deeper into dark magic. He gained a small band of followers that assisted him in his witchcraft. After the passing of several years, Ranis led his disciples—every one armed with an extensive knowledge of the vilest magic—out of their refuge and toward Calruk, where he hoped to find revenge.
He found only that the one of the great wars of that time, one of the Wars of the Tap, had reached Calruk. The city had been occupied by the forces of the Forgotten Ones—powerful, god-like beings who wanted to hold the whole of Althanas in their sway. Intrigued by the opportunities the presence of the Forgotten entailed, Ranis used all of his charm and wit to request an audience with the Forgotten Denebriel. It is said that they spoke only for a moment in Denebriel’s grand audience chamber (the converted throne room of the executed King) before Denebriel asked to speak to him in private.
Ranis left with her and no one saw him for years. It is rumored that she wielded the full power of the Tap itself—that now-shattered central source of magic—to change Ashiakin into the creature that he is now. When he finally emerged, he became Denebriel’s most trusted lieutenant, taking the new name of Ashiakin Xan-ris Azzarak. Although she would change eleven others after him, Ashiakin always remained closest to her. For the last six hundred years of the Wars of the Tap, he commanded her armies and conducted her diplomatic missions and constructed her strategies—there were often rumors that he was her lover. Ashiakin became respected and feared by many.
But the reign of the Forgotten Ones did not last. Eventually their armies were defeated by the forces of the Mya and the Forgotten themselves were sealed beyond the fabric of time. Ashiakin and Denebriel’s other lietenants were sealed away with powerful magic in tombs all across Salvar. But ages and ages passed— a time so long it was really immeasurable—and the purpose of the Salvic tombs were forgotten by the people. Several years ago the magical seals on Ashiakin’s tomb rotted off and he broke free, once more bending the world to his will—this time in his own name instead of that of another.
Occupation and Current Activities
Since his emergence from his ten thousand year confinement, Ashiakin has spent much of his time working as an agent of Salvar’s monarchy. He is currently the First Minister of the Royal Council of Salvar, the most powerful figure in the government besides the King himself. However, since the outbreak of civil war between the Church of the Ethereal Sway and the monarchy in Salvar—and Denebriel’s return from her own imprisonment—Ashiakin’s loyalties to the monarchy are being tested.
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