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Christoph
01-23-08, 01:20 AM
Name: Christopher Knighton

Level: 4

Age: 20

Race: Human

Hair Color: Brown

Eye Color: Brown

Height: 5'11"

Weight: 175 Pounds

Occupation: Chef for one of the classier taverns in his town.


Appearance: Chris has a certain noble look about him when he asserts himself that seems almost out of place in his current line of work. Most of the time, however, he just looks like a scruffy, frustrated chef, with an unnerving habit of talking to himself, to casual observers. His travels have resulted in his face and body slimming up a little. Most remains of his baby face have vanished, bringing the noble side of his appearance out.

His mop of thick brown hair is wavy almost to the point of being curly and his strong chin and soft brown eyes curiously accent clean facial features. At least, it does when he's clean-shaven and well rested, neither of which happens often. On the whole his face looks rather German/middle European. His frame is solid and his shoulders are broad.


History: Chris’s grandfather was said to be a brave knight, as well as a rich and powerful noble. These were the only mentioned redeeming features that Chris’s mother ever spoke of. And she only spoke of them right before telling the tale of how said knight had an extended affair with Chris’s grandmother before running off with another woman and leaving his newborn child its mother to fend for themselves.

Chris’s mother followed in her mother’s footsteps in many ways. She, too, fell in love with a wealthy man who ran off and left her with a young child, Chris. Curiously, no more than two weeks after that, word of a strange string of violent murders arrived from a nearby town. The person behind it was never caught

Fortunately, Chris’s mother was a little smarter and had saved enough money to open the Golden Grass Tavern-Inn, where Chris now works.

Chris went out into the world for the sake of business. He traveled to Scara Brae first, where he met a few random people, got into a rather satirical brawl and nearly got pummeled by some angry sailors. Luckily, he'd managed to meet with some warehouse owners there and worked out a number of contracts for his mother's tavern. After almost a month, he left Scara Brae for Corone, where he is currently dealing with all sorts of zombie related irritations. And guess what? He’s still there. While he hasn’t had many problems with zombies since then, he did spend a few weeks held in a prison in Radisanth, where he was forced to fight in the Citadel against his will a number of times before he was finally freed. Since then, he’s just been trying to finish his business in Corone and go back home without getting into any more trouble. This was, of course, only partially successful. He finally managed to return home, but not before getting into plenty of more trouble.

Skills:

The art of barroom shit kicking:

Aside from his impressive cooking, baking, and drink mixing abilities, Chris’s job has also made him a reasonable brawler. He’s learned to grapple and throw solid punches, not to mention how to fight with various odd objects (stools, chairs, beer mugs, kitchen knives, spoons, forks, etc...), from all those late nights of throwing drunks out and breaking up (or starting, from time to time) fights. His travels have taken him to other, rougher taverns. Because of his experiences there, he's proven himself a reasonably dangerous brawler. During his unwilling series of citadel battles, Chris was forced to hone his brawling skills in real combat. Though his general level of skill hasn’t changed, his agility and reflexes have. His physical dexterity is about twice that of an average human.


Literacy:

Chris is very literate and reads and writes often. He can decipher Elven and Dwarvian texts without much trouble. He uses his affinity with written language to help teach himself new skills.


Metalworking:

With some research, Chris taught himself intermediate metalworking skills. After putting some practice into it, he’s become proficient with basic metals (iron, steel) and has rudimentary skills in working precious metals (gold, silver) and with Mithril, Damascus, and other special materials.


Cooking:

Chris is a chef and has been cooking for his entire life; he is a very skilled cook. His travels have given him more experience in cooking outside and in unpleasant conditions than he would have wanted. His cooking skills have improved a bit more since he left home.


Swordplay:

Chris has also taught himself some basic swordplay, mainly based off of fencing, but with other elements as well, and some simple martial arts, both of which he had occasionally practiced with the local town guards in his town. During his travels away from his home in Salvar, Chris has become a lethal foe in combat with his sword and cooking knives.


He knows stuff:

His reading and doesn’t end there. Chris also enjoys studying history, music, philosophy, art, and all small amount of science.


The Arcane Arts:

He’s even begun dabbling in the mysterious arcane arts. Magic is highly frowned upon in his town, and if this particular hobby were ever discovered, he would risk being burned at the stake or hung by the neck in traditional feudal fashion. For much of his journey, he’d had little time to actually study his spells. However, the power of the magic coursing through him has been increasing slowly, but steadily. He has been finding that his abilities with fire and heat have become more formidable and efficient, though he has yet to actually figure out the degree of which this has occurred. Typically, he realizes his increased power by mistake, especially when he’s in danger (in true cliché fashion). This has only increased more so during his frequent, violent trials in Corone. Having finally gotten a little down time during his journey, Chris has been able to study the arcane arts again.

1.) Dream-walking:
Chris has begun research into dream-walking, a peculiar art that he unwillingly discovered his personal affinity for. He’s figured out how to conduct rituals to keep his wandering sub-conscious in place, or to do the opposite and intentionally cause his mind to enter someone else’s dream. He hasn’t figured out how to direct where he ends up, though. For this reason, the latter ritual is very risky.

2.) Magical Metal:
His studies also extended into slightly more advanced alchemy and material enchantment. His current abilities in both are somewhere in between novice and proficient, and extend only to metal. He can perform alchemical experiments to harden or soften basic metals. Normally, this will make the metal either more brittle if made harder, or more malleable or flexible if made softer. He can also place enchantments on metal. These would consist of basic protective shielding spells, empowering spells, or offensive spells. This process takes quite a bit of time and effort, as well as full concentration. Any enchanted item would be requested as a spoil at the end of a quest or battle, and subject to moderator approval.

3.) Hot Stuff:
Chris has the ability to increase the temperature of metal to the level of a branding iron. He can also use his magic to protect himself from extreme temperatures. In addition, he mastered the skills required to do both spells at the same time, which he was definitely very excited about. And the cause for real excitement is his new trick! He’s finally mastered a spell that can allow him to protect his entire body from extreme heat for up to twenty seconds. This would allow him to sprint through raging fires without being completely roasted alive. He’s still not going to be swimming in boiling water, though.

4.) Hotter Stuff
With his life frequently on the line, Chris has been using his magic more and more to survive. Because of this, his skill and powers have increased. He has been finding himself able to summon balls of fire the size of his head, fling smaller ones rapidly, and maintain a steady stream of fire for several seconds, enough to engulf the whole of an average human adult's body. As always, though, nothing drains him like exerting his magical powers. While flicking around smaller balls of flame won’t normally wear him out, a good thirty head-sized fireballs or ten streams of flame are liable to leave him exhausted unless he is very well rested and takes extra time before battle to meditate and focus his energies. That almost never happens, of course, to his irritation, meaning that his ammo is always more limited than he would like it to be.


5.) Charms and Cantrips:
During much of his idle time traveling, Chris has expanded his repertoire of spells. He’s learned several quick, minor spells to aid him in a variety of situations. These spells draw more from his mental powers, rather than his life force that his pyrokinetics tend to expend. At his current skill and efficiency, he can cast five times from the spells listed below each day before feeling mentally drained.

- Feather-fall: this charm can reduce any fall of 30 feet or less to a harmless velocity. Longer falls will be lessened, but will still do damage as though they were 30 feet closer to the ground.

- Titan’s Strength: Seriously, this charm doesn’t come anywhere near its namesake. It does, however, double his strength for about two minutes.

- Metal Leech: With a touch, Chris can suck the strength out of metallic materials, making them soft and brittle. The effect varies depending on the metal and how long he is in contact with it. This spell has yet to affect any metals of the strength of adamantine or greater.

- Wind Feet: This spell allows Chris to jump four times as high as normal, and doubles his forward running speed. It lasts for two minutes.

- Dazzling Swiftness: This charm grants double speed and agility, allowing him to dodge all but the fastest of attacks. It has little effect on his running speed, however. It lasts for three minutes.

- Flash and Smoke: This spell creates a large flash to blind enemies, followed by a cloud of smoke to obscure his movements.

- Shield Charm: This is a basic defensive spell that covers a 4’ by 3’ area in front of him. It can block arrows and deflect average punches and weapon strikes. It can only take five or six hits before breaking, though. Stronger attacks will destroy it faster.


6.) Mage Senses:
Chris has become adept as using magic to augment his sensory perception. He has the ability to detect concentrations and vacuums of life energy. The practical upshot of this is that he can detect the locations of living and undead beings without needing to actually see or hear them. Also, he has become adept at sensing enchantments, especially those on items. The initial indication of a magical object’s presence tends to come at random, but once he knows that it’s there, he can usually determine the item’s primary magical function.



Items: Steel dueling sword, two chef coats and hats, apron, a small library of books, and the Abyssal Blade.

The Abyssal Blade:
Master craftsmen of unknown origin forged this sinister and powerful blade from rare Prevaldia. Chris took it from a powerful vampire lord, lured by the promise of its power. Ever since, he has become more and more convinced that a malevolent presence lurks within the evil sword. The weapon is covered in arcane runes, glyphs, and sigils, each one binding a different enchantment. Currently, Chris has only been able to activate a single rune; it is an enchantment that charges him with magical energies up to twice per day, restoring 50% of his overall magical allotment, and increasing the strength of his spells by 20%.

((Abyssal Blade acquired here. (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=7155&page=5)))

Witchblade
01-23-08, 07:56 AM
You're adding in a lot of spells for one level-up, even if some of them are rather simple in nature. Because of that I would like him to only be able to cas five times before he needs rest (it does not have to be five times a day, but he may need to sleep/recuperate.)

Titan's strength may only last for two minutes and with Metal Leech, even though you mentioned it depending on the metal, I would prefer if you add in that it cannot work against Adamantine and stronger metals are hard to leech the strength from.

Christoph
01-23-08, 10:09 AM
Sounds good. Changes made.

Witchblade
01-23-08, 06:10 PM
Approverized!