Inkfinger
12-15-08, 09:34 AM
Name: Caelric "Inkfinger" Strandssen
Age: 32
Sex: Male
Height: Six feet, three inches tall; he currently stands with a perpetual slouch, though, so he tends to look somewhere between five-feet-nine-inches and six feet even at first glance.
Weight: One hundred and thirty-seven pounds; about thirty pounds underweight and desperately trying to gain it back.
Hair Colour: Strawberry blond
Eye Colour: Light blue
Occupation: Scribe-Inkmage-Scapegoat-Political Prisoner
Personality: Cael is mostly amiable and easy-going, but also somewhat detached. He’s loyal to people he knows, but tends to not get worked up over certain things: he’s asexual to the point of celibacy, agnostic in religion, and -until recently- he was moderate in politics, used to playing the a mediator between ideas, and giving very few opinions on things he wasn't directly involved in.
The civil war in Salvar stole his neutrality in politics, however, as he joined his brother in a very, very small resistance that lasted about a month before the Church caught up with him - his last few months have been spent in a cell, which has led to him acquiring a somewhat thick protective layer of paranoia and cynicism, as well as a healthy hatred for the Church of the Ethereal Sway…
Appearance: Tall, lanky and unhealthily thin right now, with pale, almost translucent skin. His eyes are deep set, generally dark-rimmed and light blue, and his hair is fine, cropped short and messy right now – as in, trimmed-with-no-mirror-and-using-the-blade-of-a-penknife messy. His eyebrows and eyelashes are the same shade, so sometimes it looks as though he has no eyebrows at all. He usually has a layer of stubble on his cheeks, but it never seems to materialize to a full beard.
He has old, deep scarring from his left ankle to left hip and walks with a rather noticeable limp from those scars. His back, shoulders, arms and legs have fresher scarring in a mishmash of moderately-recent wound ranging from whip slashes to burn marks that are just beginning to heal. His hands are stained with multiple colors of inks, to the extent that the faded ink almost looks like a part of his skin. His left hand has a strange, ink-like marking that extends from the webbing between his fingers all the way to his elbow, and his right hand has a sign branded across the back.
He tends to tilt his head to the side when he's listening closely to anything, looking rather like a confused, blond puppy. He dresses in layers of Whatever He Can Scrounge Up, so his wardrobe is variable and prone to being discarded as needed, so very little remains a constant, save for his inkmage robe and his cuirass (both described further in armor).
His voice is a hoarse tenor (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDVYSb6x5_E), and (while he is rather well-spoken in his native language) he has a thick accent -a strange mixture between a North-London accent and Russian accent in Earth terms- when speaking Tradespeak.
Weapons:
Naginata: The shaft is six-and-a-quarter feet of hardened oak, wrapped in varying strips of black sharkskin and spidersilk for enhanced grip. The blade is a foot-and-a-half of blacked steel, and the leading edge of the blade is serrated. The butt end is capped with blackened steel as well. It has a red leather over-the-shoulder harness with a set of bronze rings to hold the naginata in place on Cael’s back, but it doesn’t have a sheath for the blade.
Penknife: A folding knife with a six-inch steel blade showing some scuffs and scrapes. The handle is made of ivory and brass: the ivory is yellowing, the brass is starting to go green, but aside from the cosmetic issues it is well maintained and kept sharp.
Armor:
Feet: Leather boots, reinforced with steel over the toes and heels. They’re about a size too big for him, so he needs to shove fabric in the toes and heels to keep his feet steady.
Legs: Heavy denim trousers lined with linen, and an added layer of wool between the denim and the linen. They were originally meant for someone a couple inches shorter than him so they fall a couple inches higher than his ankles, but it’s not like he cares - they’re warm and that’s what matters, right?
Torso:
1. Long sleeved, gray linen shirt. The left sleeve is in tatters up to the elbow, the other extends an inch past his fingertips, and the bottom hem reaches his mid-thighs.
2. A coat that is vaguely Asian in shape (http://www.japanesegift.jp/images/h16hisimoji_bk.jpg), belted at the waist, the skirt of which reaches his mid-shins. It is made of quilted silk, and –unlike the reference image- is plain, solid midnight blue in color, lined with white. The coat was enchanted by his old mentor to resist ink, a useful trait in his profession. Other than that, it is completely ordinary, and utterly useless against “real” weapons. It’s also the only piece of clothing he has that fits right.
3. Cael’s one and only real piece of armor is a lamellar cuirass. Style wise, it looks like so (http://www.skornictwo.pl/english/jpg/armours/armour_2.htm), only made of black Arctic leather and etched with crude designs that he thinks are meant to be horses, but he can’t really tell. It’s a bit weathered and scuffed and -not surprisingly - it’s a bit too big for him, but it does the job. He wears it over his coat, most of the time.
4. He has a dark gray burlap cloak with a hood. It's bottom edge trails on the ground behind his ankles, and is tattered, blood-and-mud stained.
Hands : Fingerless knit-wool gloves, inkstained and fraying.
Head: Foreign Legion Hat - A simple white canvas cap with a brim of black leather and a back flap to protect his neck from the sun. It’s been enchanted to prevent blindness in bright light such as the sun reflecting off sand or snow. However, it does nothing to increase the wearer’s ability to see in the dark.
Unders: n.o.y.d.b. thank you very much!
Other Equipment:
Inkwell - an unassuming looking, clear-blue cork-topped bottle that holds about 12 fluid ounces of ink. The cork is the only sign that there's anything odd about the inkwell. It has a symbol etched on the bottom that isn't ever hidden, despite the fact that it's the same color of the ink inside.
Pen - A nib pen with four changeable, sharpened nibs. It, like the inkwell, is almost completely ordinary in appearance; only the sigils etched on the nibs give anything away.
Notebook – A large notebook, bound in leather, with rough, off-white pages, about 12inches by 12inches by 3inches. There are pockets on the inside for small cut pieces of his origami paper. The notebook is perfectly ordinary, but practically glued to his person at all times and thus worth mentioning.
Rucksack: oil-treated leather; waterproof with a zipper. The large sort with lots of cool pockets and pouches, quite capable of hauling all of Cael's assorted writing junk around.
Chains: Cael’s manacles from his imprisonment. Two chains about twelve feet long each, made of rusty iron. He’s not really sure why he brought them along, but then again you can’t ever be too sure when you’ll need something.
Skills:
Fighting:
Naginata: Cael has worked himself up to becoming an average fighter with his naginata.
Hand-to-hand: Cael is still below-average in hand-to-hand combat.
Penmenship: Cael's fifteen-plus years as a scribe have resulted in him having perfect handwriting, and an eye for duplicating. He can write in a good twenty different styles, is an expert at forgery, and can copy various pictogram-and-symbol based languages that he doesn't know if he's given a base to look at.
Ink Magic: Ink Magic is an art that is a combination of innate ability and the proper artifacts. Most of the spells require specific artifacts - a pen and an inkpot (which must be the set the Mage learned with unless said set is destroyed) - reagents - in the form of paper and blood-dosed-ink - and prior preparation. An Inkmage first prepares the paper by writing a word, or drawing a symbol or picture symbolizing the action or reaction the mage wishes to cause in ink from their inkwell. The ink must contain blood (a single drop is sufficient for a whole inkwell worth of otherwise ordinary ink) - the mage's own blood works best, simply because another's blood in an Inkmage's inkwell pretty much reminds them of spitting in another's drink. It's just Not Done. The paper is then folded - much like origami - and either used instantly, or saved for later use. Ink Magic is not the most practical form of magic to use in the heat of battle, and Cael is often the first to admit it, generally while running away. Ink Magic also doesn't keep well - a prepared spell must be used before the precise time it was prepared the previous day, or it reverts to plain paper and ink.
Spells
Wish of a Thousand Cranes - By drawing a sigil representing a crane, Cael can create effective healing tools out of simple paper – these include bandages, cold and heated compresses, braces and salves. Useful for controlling the damage from deep cuts, bruises and broken bones, and can heal shallow-to-moderate depth cuts, bruises and sprains; healing takes anywhere from half an hour to a full day, depending on extent of wound.
Blade of the Two Thousand Wings - Requires a paper crane. By drawing a sigil on a paper and using the paper to create a crane, Cael can create and control thin blades of blue energy that deliver cuts about the depth and intensity of the wounds delivered by an average swordsman. However, they're only good for slicing, not piercing, and their range is forty-to-fifty feet. They decrease in intensity the further they extend from Cael.
Circle of Ink Binding - This spell requires advanced preparation for what is, ultimately, a somewhat lackluster effect. Simply put, Cael draws a circle of sigils directly on the floor, with a species-specific symbol in the middle. Any being of that species within a level or so of Cael's skill level that steps over the edge of the circle will find themselves trapped within. The effect lasts about ten minutes (varying with the determination of the one trapped and Cael's proximity to the circle), and the being trapped within is immune to any attacks Cael might throw at them. Therefore, it's best to slap it down and Run Away.
Inklife - Cael can bring up to twelve paper constructs to life, sending them to scout ahead or steal small objects for him. He can, if he concentrates, 'see' what the constructs are looking at, but it appears in flat, sketchy details, like he's looking at an ink drawing done by a child with no sense of perspective and only one shade of in. He can animate constructs varying between two inches (if he animates all twelve) and six inches (if he only animates two) in length. If destroyed, they 'bleed' ink.
Essence – This spell allows Cael to transfer an intended essence to his constructs – if he created an origami hare, it would still look like paper, but it would feel like fur.
Reality As My Blank Page: Cael's most recently discovered ability, and the one he's least adept at. He's discovered with the proper amount of concentration and focus on what he’s writing, he can write things into – or out of – existence. Need a wall of fire between you and an opponent? He can write it there. Want a wall gone? He can get it gone. Or at least part of it. Hopefully. However, the spell works in something very much like storytelling - he has to be able to write a full scene wherein the obstacle/item is created/destroyed/moved/whathaveyou for it to work, there can be no misspellings, smudges or interruptions in the work or he'll have to start at the beginning...and this spell only works if he works it with blood, not ink.
Currently he can only create or remove obstacles up to five feet in length and height, he can not write living beings out of existence, can only write non-sentient creatures that are smaller than horses into existence (so he could summon a wolf, but not a dragon) and created objects tend to be below-average in quality: if he tries to write, say, a sword into existence it'll come out looking like a blacksmith apprentice's first failure: possibly usable, but more likely to cause problems for the wielder. Needless to say, trying to use this spell in battle often brings about...interesting results for both sides.
Portals Magic: Close proximity with Ulric’s amulet over the month of travel - and its subsequent merging with his person - coupled with his extensive use of the portal networks in that month has let him pick up a passive knowledge of the Salvic portal network: he can influence which portal he will emerge from once he’s actually started the process of traveling, and he can activate the portals without needing an amulet, despite not being a portal-mage. This skill is more or less confined to being useful only in Salvar, though the portals in Haidia may react similarly. He'd really rather not find out.
History: Cael Inkfinger was born Caelric Strandssen in the Salvar seaside fiefdom of Gjovik, son of a fish merchant and a fisherwoman, and the youngest of five children. As he grew older, he took more after his father’s side of the career, preferring the relative quiet of a study with a stack of forms to fill out over being outside with the cold and the stink and sea. Soon, however, he took to preferring free words over those of a set form, and begged and cajoled his father into letting him be trained as a scribe.
His father eventually gave in when he was about 15, carting his son off to Knife's Edge to be apprenticed. His apprenticeship passed quickly and without much noteworthy – it was after his apprenticeship ended and he had moved on further North to a small, inconsequential fiefdom called Aronia that the trouble started. He found himself looking for ways to make money and found the easiest way to make money (besides the small fees he could charge for writing letters and the such for people who couldn't write on their own) was to write things that people wanted to read – things like stories about their neighbors, painted in various shades of Untruth. For a while, he was merely a self-distributed community nuisance, a bit of a tale-telling, gossip-mongering, muckraker type but mostly harmless…
Until he wrote some Not Very Complimentary Things about the wrong man. This man, instead of merely threatening him, or bribing him to shut up, paid a couple of men to arrange for Cael to have an ‘accident’. He was ambushed in the dead of night, dragged out of Aronia and thrown off a cliff into a tributary of a river. The fall mangled his leg, and his time in the water resulted in a severe case of pneumonia. The current carried him downriver, leaving him battered and bloody in the shallows along a path.
He was conveniently found and nursed back to health by a traveling troupe of performers. It took him several months to completely recover – the pneumonia actually damaged his hearing to the point where he now cannot hear from his left ear, and he'll more than likely have a limp for the rest of his life. He continued to travel with the troupe after his recovery, traveling across the continent, writing advertisements and lettering posters for them.
It was in this that one of the performers, a tiny old man named Tan Li, saw something that most would not. Old Tan was an Inkmage, and he saw in Cael an – pardon the pun – inkling of that skill. He took the recovering young man under his wing, and began his training. It went somewhat slowly at first, as Cael preferred to write over studying. But over time (close, he's reluctant to admit, to four years of traveling, though only a year and a half of those travel actually included training) he began to pick up more and more, adding his skills to Old Tan's paper creations and performances. The night of Cael's first solo performance (a near disaster involving paper butterflies, a candle and an inconvenient stable), his teacher turned him loose. Inkmagic was relatively passive as far as magic styles go, and one of those things that can only be learned -past a certain point- on one’s own.
Cael had been wandering for months after that, making his way towards Scara Brae and writing back to Old Tan about his adventures almost weekly. He also started to weasel his way back into his old styles of writing, which proved to be a problem in the future…
Cael traveled to Corone, where he was approached about writing a (more than likely false) story about the local branch of the Corone Armed Forces. He wrote the piece, sent it off - and never received his fee. The story was printed by the man who had commissioned it, and circulated through the city with Cael's name on it. One of the men represented in the article, Captain Jui, tracked Cael down. He was planning on simply killing the hapless muckraker, but was distracted by his magic uses. Jui, not the type to waste a potentially profitable talent, hatched a plan instead.
He drugged Cael, and had him taken to the Citadel, where he was forced to fight without knowing that the Citadel was magic, and that the deaths wouldn't be permanent. Once he fought, died and was resurrected, Jui informed him that he was responsible for Cael's recovery, and that if Cael didn't swear his loyalty to Jui, Jui would have him executed for real. Cael, reluctantly, agreed. Jui then, to Cael's surprise, let him go... He was free to travel and increase his skills, learn to fight - but when Jui summoned him, he must drop everything and come, or risk having the soldier track him down and kill him.
Cael fled Corone quickly upon his release, traveling to Scara Brae, where he purchased a Naginata and (he hoped) instructions on how to use it. Later, he overheard the young man Ingwe Helyanwe speaking of a Dragon Sage. Eager to learn if this sage knew of Ink Magic, Cael followed him on his quest...but the quest didn't entirely go as planned.
Instead, they wound up in an encounter with the refugees from a goblin attack. They help defend the refugees and made their way to the Dragon Sage once the refugees were safe. The visit didn’t go as planned, but Cael and Ingwe parted ways on amiable terms.
Cael slowly made his way back to Salvar, where he met with his brother, who had some…interesting ideas about how the country was being run. Cael was drafted into his brother’s ragtag idea of humanitarian aid, and spent the subsequent month traveling the countryside in an ill-guided (if well meant) attempt to rally the nation’s morale and help the villages hit hardest by the famine, aided by a few friends and a man who gave him a talisman that let him activate Salvar’s portal network...
It didn’t go so well. The humanitarians were betrayed from within, many of its members killed, or captured and then killed. Cael – as a known relation to one of the so-called ringleaders – was left alive, but was imprisoned in the cells beneath the Cathedral of St. Denebriel. He was imprisoned for an unknown (to him) amount of time, in hope that he would cave and turn in his brother, or that his brother would attempt to stage a rescue, or that he would just…prove useful.
Somehow.
He didn’t.
And if it wasn’t for the food being delivered semi-regularly, he would have thought they’d forgotten him, or decided to leave him to rot. He spent his days – or possibly nights – drawing out the portal network on the floor, using the strange knowledge now floating on the edge of his brain to take his mind off the situation at hand.
He’s not entirely sure how he escaped. He just knows he did. He vaguely remembers getting out of the cell, managing to raid a storeroom of impounded and confiscated things to reclaim what of his gear survived and replace that which he couldn't find, and he clearly remembers that last mad dash to the portal…and the subsequent, wrong-feeling transport that took him somewhere – and some time – else entirely.
He may have possibly had help with this. D:
Familiar: It - an animated origami creation that needs recreated daily. It varies in form between Crane (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v257/OzymandiusJones/origami_crane.jpg), Dragon (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v257/OzymandiusJones/P_EasternDragon_Maekawa_Genuine.jpg), Butterfly (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v257/OzymandiusJones/P_Origamido1_Lafosse_Butterflies.jpg), Macaw (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v257/OzymandiusJones/P_Parrot_Shunichi.jpg) and Bear (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v257/OzymandiusJones/P_Bear_Zsebe.jpg) and Rabbit (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v257/OzymandiusJones/P_Rabbit_Noboru.jpg), depending on what Cael feels like making. It speaks by words forming in ink in whatever space would serve as Its mouth, floating in midair for mere seconds, and It does not repeat itself when Cael misses what It has said. It is also, quite obviously, genderless. How would you ask a paper bunny if It's a boy or a girl anyways?
Age: 32
Sex: Male
Height: Six feet, three inches tall; he currently stands with a perpetual slouch, though, so he tends to look somewhere between five-feet-nine-inches and six feet even at first glance.
Weight: One hundred and thirty-seven pounds; about thirty pounds underweight and desperately trying to gain it back.
Hair Colour: Strawberry blond
Eye Colour: Light blue
Occupation: Scribe-Inkmage-Scapegoat-Political Prisoner
Personality: Cael is mostly amiable and easy-going, but also somewhat detached. He’s loyal to people he knows, but tends to not get worked up over certain things: he’s asexual to the point of celibacy, agnostic in religion, and -until recently- he was moderate in politics, used to playing the a mediator between ideas, and giving very few opinions on things he wasn't directly involved in.
The civil war in Salvar stole his neutrality in politics, however, as he joined his brother in a very, very small resistance that lasted about a month before the Church caught up with him - his last few months have been spent in a cell, which has led to him acquiring a somewhat thick protective layer of paranoia and cynicism, as well as a healthy hatred for the Church of the Ethereal Sway…
Appearance: Tall, lanky and unhealthily thin right now, with pale, almost translucent skin. His eyes are deep set, generally dark-rimmed and light blue, and his hair is fine, cropped short and messy right now – as in, trimmed-with-no-mirror-and-using-the-blade-of-a-penknife messy. His eyebrows and eyelashes are the same shade, so sometimes it looks as though he has no eyebrows at all. He usually has a layer of stubble on his cheeks, but it never seems to materialize to a full beard.
He has old, deep scarring from his left ankle to left hip and walks with a rather noticeable limp from those scars. His back, shoulders, arms and legs have fresher scarring in a mishmash of moderately-recent wound ranging from whip slashes to burn marks that are just beginning to heal. His hands are stained with multiple colors of inks, to the extent that the faded ink almost looks like a part of his skin. His left hand has a strange, ink-like marking that extends from the webbing between his fingers all the way to his elbow, and his right hand has a sign branded across the back.
He tends to tilt his head to the side when he's listening closely to anything, looking rather like a confused, blond puppy. He dresses in layers of Whatever He Can Scrounge Up, so his wardrobe is variable and prone to being discarded as needed, so very little remains a constant, save for his inkmage robe and his cuirass (both described further in armor).
His voice is a hoarse tenor (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDVYSb6x5_E), and (while he is rather well-spoken in his native language) he has a thick accent -a strange mixture between a North-London accent and Russian accent in Earth terms- when speaking Tradespeak.
Weapons:
Naginata: The shaft is six-and-a-quarter feet of hardened oak, wrapped in varying strips of black sharkskin and spidersilk for enhanced grip. The blade is a foot-and-a-half of blacked steel, and the leading edge of the blade is serrated. The butt end is capped with blackened steel as well. It has a red leather over-the-shoulder harness with a set of bronze rings to hold the naginata in place on Cael’s back, but it doesn’t have a sheath for the blade.
Penknife: A folding knife with a six-inch steel blade showing some scuffs and scrapes. The handle is made of ivory and brass: the ivory is yellowing, the brass is starting to go green, but aside from the cosmetic issues it is well maintained and kept sharp.
Armor:
Feet: Leather boots, reinforced with steel over the toes and heels. They’re about a size too big for him, so he needs to shove fabric in the toes and heels to keep his feet steady.
Legs: Heavy denim trousers lined with linen, and an added layer of wool between the denim and the linen. They were originally meant for someone a couple inches shorter than him so they fall a couple inches higher than his ankles, but it’s not like he cares - they’re warm and that’s what matters, right?
Torso:
1. Long sleeved, gray linen shirt. The left sleeve is in tatters up to the elbow, the other extends an inch past his fingertips, and the bottom hem reaches his mid-thighs.
2. A coat that is vaguely Asian in shape (http://www.japanesegift.jp/images/h16hisimoji_bk.jpg), belted at the waist, the skirt of which reaches his mid-shins. It is made of quilted silk, and –unlike the reference image- is plain, solid midnight blue in color, lined with white. The coat was enchanted by his old mentor to resist ink, a useful trait in his profession. Other than that, it is completely ordinary, and utterly useless against “real” weapons. It’s also the only piece of clothing he has that fits right.
3. Cael’s one and only real piece of armor is a lamellar cuirass. Style wise, it looks like so (http://www.skornictwo.pl/english/jpg/armours/armour_2.htm), only made of black Arctic leather and etched with crude designs that he thinks are meant to be horses, but he can’t really tell. It’s a bit weathered and scuffed and -not surprisingly - it’s a bit too big for him, but it does the job. He wears it over his coat, most of the time.
4. He has a dark gray burlap cloak with a hood. It's bottom edge trails on the ground behind his ankles, and is tattered, blood-and-mud stained.
Hands : Fingerless knit-wool gloves, inkstained and fraying.
Head: Foreign Legion Hat - A simple white canvas cap with a brim of black leather and a back flap to protect his neck from the sun. It’s been enchanted to prevent blindness in bright light such as the sun reflecting off sand or snow. However, it does nothing to increase the wearer’s ability to see in the dark.
Unders: n.o.y.d.b. thank you very much!
Other Equipment:
Inkwell - an unassuming looking, clear-blue cork-topped bottle that holds about 12 fluid ounces of ink. The cork is the only sign that there's anything odd about the inkwell. It has a symbol etched on the bottom that isn't ever hidden, despite the fact that it's the same color of the ink inside.
Pen - A nib pen with four changeable, sharpened nibs. It, like the inkwell, is almost completely ordinary in appearance; only the sigils etched on the nibs give anything away.
Notebook – A large notebook, bound in leather, with rough, off-white pages, about 12inches by 12inches by 3inches. There are pockets on the inside for small cut pieces of his origami paper. The notebook is perfectly ordinary, but practically glued to his person at all times and thus worth mentioning.
Rucksack: oil-treated leather; waterproof with a zipper. The large sort with lots of cool pockets and pouches, quite capable of hauling all of Cael's assorted writing junk around.
Chains: Cael’s manacles from his imprisonment. Two chains about twelve feet long each, made of rusty iron. He’s not really sure why he brought them along, but then again you can’t ever be too sure when you’ll need something.
Skills:
Fighting:
Naginata: Cael has worked himself up to becoming an average fighter with his naginata.
Hand-to-hand: Cael is still below-average in hand-to-hand combat.
Penmenship: Cael's fifteen-plus years as a scribe have resulted in him having perfect handwriting, and an eye for duplicating. He can write in a good twenty different styles, is an expert at forgery, and can copy various pictogram-and-symbol based languages that he doesn't know if he's given a base to look at.
Ink Magic: Ink Magic is an art that is a combination of innate ability and the proper artifacts. Most of the spells require specific artifacts - a pen and an inkpot (which must be the set the Mage learned with unless said set is destroyed) - reagents - in the form of paper and blood-dosed-ink - and prior preparation. An Inkmage first prepares the paper by writing a word, or drawing a symbol or picture symbolizing the action or reaction the mage wishes to cause in ink from their inkwell. The ink must contain blood (a single drop is sufficient for a whole inkwell worth of otherwise ordinary ink) - the mage's own blood works best, simply because another's blood in an Inkmage's inkwell pretty much reminds them of spitting in another's drink. It's just Not Done. The paper is then folded - much like origami - and either used instantly, or saved for later use. Ink Magic is not the most practical form of magic to use in the heat of battle, and Cael is often the first to admit it, generally while running away. Ink Magic also doesn't keep well - a prepared spell must be used before the precise time it was prepared the previous day, or it reverts to plain paper and ink.
Spells
Wish of a Thousand Cranes - By drawing a sigil representing a crane, Cael can create effective healing tools out of simple paper – these include bandages, cold and heated compresses, braces and salves. Useful for controlling the damage from deep cuts, bruises and broken bones, and can heal shallow-to-moderate depth cuts, bruises and sprains; healing takes anywhere from half an hour to a full day, depending on extent of wound.
Blade of the Two Thousand Wings - Requires a paper crane. By drawing a sigil on a paper and using the paper to create a crane, Cael can create and control thin blades of blue energy that deliver cuts about the depth and intensity of the wounds delivered by an average swordsman. However, they're only good for slicing, not piercing, and their range is forty-to-fifty feet. They decrease in intensity the further they extend from Cael.
Circle of Ink Binding - This spell requires advanced preparation for what is, ultimately, a somewhat lackluster effect. Simply put, Cael draws a circle of sigils directly on the floor, with a species-specific symbol in the middle. Any being of that species within a level or so of Cael's skill level that steps over the edge of the circle will find themselves trapped within. The effect lasts about ten minutes (varying with the determination of the one trapped and Cael's proximity to the circle), and the being trapped within is immune to any attacks Cael might throw at them. Therefore, it's best to slap it down and Run Away.
Inklife - Cael can bring up to twelve paper constructs to life, sending them to scout ahead or steal small objects for him. He can, if he concentrates, 'see' what the constructs are looking at, but it appears in flat, sketchy details, like he's looking at an ink drawing done by a child with no sense of perspective and only one shade of in. He can animate constructs varying between two inches (if he animates all twelve) and six inches (if he only animates two) in length. If destroyed, they 'bleed' ink.
Essence – This spell allows Cael to transfer an intended essence to his constructs – if he created an origami hare, it would still look like paper, but it would feel like fur.
Reality As My Blank Page: Cael's most recently discovered ability, and the one he's least adept at. He's discovered with the proper amount of concentration and focus on what he’s writing, he can write things into – or out of – existence. Need a wall of fire between you and an opponent? He can write it there. Want a wall gone? He can get it gone. Or at least part of it. Hopefully. However, the spell works in something very much like storytelling - he has to be able to write a full scene wherein the obstacle/item is created/destroyed/moved/whathaveyou for it to work, there can be no misspellings, smudges or interruptions in the work or he'll have to start at the beginning...and this spell only works if he works it with blood, not ink.
Currently he can only create or remove obstacles up to five feet in length and height, he can not write living beings out of existence, can only write non-sentient creatures that are smaller than horses into existence (so he could summon a wolf, but not a dragon) and created objects tend to be below-average in quality: if he tries to write, say, a sword into existence it'll come out looking like a blacksmith apprentice's first failure: possibly usable, but more likely to cause problems for the wielder. Needless to say, trying to use this spell in battle often brings about...interesting results for both sides.
Portals Magic: Close proximity with Ulric’s amulet over the month of travel - and its subsequent merging with his person - coupled with his extensive use of the portal networks in that month has let him pick up a passive knowledge of the Salvic portal network: he can influence which portal he will emerge from once he’s actually started the process of traveling, and he can activate the portals without needing an amulet, despite not being a portal-mage. This skill is more or less confined to being useful only in Salvar, though the portals in Haidia may react similarly. He'd really rather not find out.
History: Cael Inkfinger was born Caelric Strandssen in the Salvar seaside fiefdom of Gjovik, son of a fish merchant and a fisherwoman, and the youngest of five children. As he grew older, he took more after his father’s side of the career, preferring the relative quiet of a study with a stack of forms to fill out over being outside with the cold and the stink and sea. Soon, however, he took to preferring free words over those of a set form, and begged and cajoled his father into letting him be trained as a scribe.
His father eventually gave in when he was about 15, carting his son off to Knife's Edge to be apprenticed. His apprenticeship passed quickly and without much noteworthy – it was after his apprenticeship ended and he had moved on further North to a small, inconsequential fiefdom called Aronia that the trouble started. He found himself looking for ways to make money and found the easiest way to make money (besides the small fees he could charge for writing letters and the such for people who couldn't write on their own) was to write things that people wanted to read – things like stories about their neighbors, painted in various shades of Untruth. For a while, he was merely a self-distributed community nuisance, a bit of a tale-telling, gossip-mongering, muckraker type but mostly harmless…
Until he wrote some Not Very Complimentary Things about the wrong man. This man, instead of merely threatening him, or bribing him to shut up, paid a couple of men to arrange for Cael to have an ‘accident’. He was ambushed in the dead of night, dragged out of Aronia and thrown off a cliff into a tributary of a river. The fall mangled his leg, and his time in the water resulted in a severe case of pneumonia. The current carried him downriver, leaving him battered and bloody in the shallows along a path.
He was conveniently found and nursed back to health by a traveling troupe of performers. It took him several months to completely recover – the pneumonia actually damaged his hearing to the point where he now cannot hear from his left ear, and he'll more than likely have a limp for the rest of his life. He continued to travel with the troupe after his recovery, traveling across the continent, writing advertisements and lettering posters for them.
It was in this that one of the performers, a tiny old man named Tan Li, saw something that most would not. Old Tan was an Inkmage, and he saw in Cael an – pardon the pun – inkling of that skill. He took the recovering young man under his wing, and began his training. It went somewhat slowly at first, as Cael preferred to write over studying. But over time (close, he's reluctant to admit, to four years of traveling, though only a year and a half of those travel actually included training) he began to pick up more and more, adding his skills to Old Tan's paper creations and performances. The night of Cael's first solo performance (a near disaster involving paper butterflies, a candle and an inconvenient stable), his teacher turned him loose. Inkmagic was relatively passive as far as magic styles go, and one of those things that can only be learned -past a certain point- on one’s own.
Cael had been wandering for months after that, making his way towards Scara Brae and writing back to Old Tan about his adventures almost weekly. He also started to weasel his way back into his old styles of writing, which proved to be a problem in the future…
Cael traveled to Corone, where he was approached about writing a (more than likely false) story about the local branch of the Corone Armed Forces. He wrote the piece, sent it off - and never received his fee. The story was printed by the man who had commissioned it, and circulated through the city with Cael's name on it. One of the men represented in the article, Captain Jui, tracked Cael down. He was planning on simply killing the hapless muckraker, but was distracted by his magic uses. Jui, not the type to waste a potentially profitable talent, hatched a plan instead.
He drugged Cael, and had him taken to the Citadel, where he was forced to fight without knowing that the Citadel was magic, and that the deaths wouldn't be permanent. Once he fought, died and was resurrected, Jui informed him that he was responsible for Cael's recovery, and that if Cael didn't swear his loyalty to Jui, Jui would have him executed for real. Cael, reluctantly, agreed. Jui then, to Cael's surprise, let him go... He was free to travel and increase his skills, learn to fight - but when Jui summoned him, he must drop everything and come, or risk having the soldier track him down and kill him.
Cael fled Corone quickly upon his release, traveling to Scara Brae, where he purchased a Naginata and (he hoped) instructions on how to use it. Later, he overheard the young man Ingwe Helyanwe speaking of a Dragon Sage. Eager to learn if this sage knew of Ink Magic, Cael followed him on his quest...but the quest didn't entirely go as planned.
Instead, they wound up in an encounter with the refugees from a goblin attack. They help defend the refugees and made their way to the Dragon Sage once the refugees were safe. The visit didn’t go as planned, but Cael and Ingwe parted ways on amiable terms.
Cael slowly made his way back to Salvar, where he met with his brother, who had some…interesting ideas about how the country was being run. Cael was drafted into his brother’s ragtag idea of humanitarian aid, and spent the subsequent month traveling the countryside in an ill-guided (if well meant) attempt to rally the nation’s morale and help the villages hit hardest by the famine, aided by a few friends and a man who gave him a talisman that let him activate Salvar’s portal network...
It didn’t go so well. The humanitarians were betrayed from within, many of its members killed, or captured and then killed. Cael – as a known relation to one of the so-called ringleaders – was left alive, but was imprisoned in the cells beneath the Cathedral of St. Denebriel. He was imprisoned for an unknown (to him) amount of time, in hope that he would cave and turn in his brother, or that his brother would attempt to stage a rescue, or that he would just…prove useful.
Somehow.
He didn’t.
And if it wasn’t for the food being delivered semi-regularly, he would have thought they’d forgotten him, or decided to leave him to rot. He spent his days – or possibly nights – drawing out the portal network on the floor, using the strange knowledge now floating on the edge of his brain to take his mind off the situation at hand.
He’s not entirely sure how he escaped. He just knows he did. He vaguely remembers getting out of the cell, managing to raid a storeroom of impounded and confiscated things to reclaim what of his gear survived and replace that which he couldn't find, and he clearly remembers that last mad dash to the portal…and the subsequent, wrong-feeling transport that took him somewhere – and some time – else entirely.
He may have possibly had help with this. D:
Familiar: It - an animated origami creation that needs recreated daily. It varies in form between Crane (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v257/OzymandiusJones/origami_crane.jpg), Dragon (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v257/OzymandiusJones/P_EasternDragon_Maekawa_Genuine.jpg), Butterfly (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v257/OzymandiusJones/P_Origamido1_Lafosse_Butterflies.jpg), Macaw (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v257/OzymandiusJones/P_Parrot_Shunichi.jpg) and Bear (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v257/OzymandiusJones/P_Bear_Zsebe.jpg) and Rabbit (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v257/OzymandiusJones/P_Rabbit_Noboru.jpg), depending on what Cael feels like making. It speaks by words forming in ink in whatever space would serve as Its mouth, floating in midair for mere seconds, and It does not repeat itself when Cael misses what It has said. It is also, quite obviously, genderless. How would you ask a paper bunny if It's a boy or a girl anyways?