Aeraul Smythe
12-16-08, 10:07 PM
Aeraul's Level 0 version is currently stuck in the Catacombs. The ToC version incorporates a bunch of things I intend to work towards once he's finally out of there. I didn't bother updating his history since...really, I haven't played him enough to plan out what happens next, and I really don't want to plan out what happens next anyway. Least not plot-wise. :D
Name: Aeraul Smythe (Prefered, Human name), Malgor Kildrake of the Black Sun Tribe (Rarely used, Orc name)
Age: 27
Race: Half-Human, Half-Orc
Hair Color: Glossy black
Eye Color: Light green, situationally phospherescent red or green
Height: 6'6"
Weight: 310 lbs.
Primary Occupation: Adventurer, Mercenary (Company unknown)
Secondary Occupations: Navigator, Tourguide, Negotiator, Scholar, Philosopher, Swordsman
Languages Spoken: Common (Tradespeak), Elven, Aleraran and some Orcish
Personality: Aeraul is a person defined by three words: Quiet and reserved. He's the living, breathing antithesis of your standard orc: Neither undisciplined or rowdy, neither honor-obsessed or remotely noble. He's a thoughtful intellectual who has a poor sense of humor, spends most of his free time with his face in a book, and he meditates constantly – at least one to three hours daily. Empathic to a fault due to his half-orc heritage, Aeraul can sense and is somewhat influenced by the emotions of others – more so in a crowded setting, and even more than that when he hasn't meditated for more than a day. The longer he goes without meditation, the more Aeraul runs the risk of falling into a blind animalistic rage at the drop of a dime. Unlike most half-breeds, Aeraul considers himself a true Human being; he disdains most orcs and their ways as being primitive and barbaric. He harbors a deep contempt for Raiaeran Elves, and a slight loathing for their Aleraran cousins. While he once professed pacifism, Aeraul now holds no illusions about fighting and facing danger: It's literally in his blood, and he no longer feels shame about seeking it out.
Appearance: A giant among humans and a shrimp among the orcs of his mother's tribe and trope. Aeraul comes in at six foot six inches of pure overkill, with a heavily muscled build that shows a lot of definition and precious few scars. Said lack of scars is due more to his deceptive agility than anything else. His hair is glossy black, cut short and combed back very neatly, with well-trimmed sideburns leading to an elegantly thin, short beard that runs along his jawline and chin. Excepting his green skin, his almost square jawline and barely pointed ears, Aeraul generally looks like a human being. His eyes are dark green in most lighting, turning phosphorescent in darker conditions and red when angered. When “on the job” and looking for action, Aeraul typically wears a pair of functionally lose brown pants, a black long-sleeved shirt and a knee-length purple silk vest woven with steel chainmail and strategically placed steel plates. Added to this are customized Akashiman men – leather gauntlets with steel bands on the wrist and studs along each knuckle and finger – and steel pauldrons. Lastly are a pair of heavy-duty boots sporting steel plate across the front of each shin. Whether on the job or not, he usually incorporates a purple silk sash into his outfit. Unlike most orcs and half-orcs, Aeraul keeps his fangs and nails filed down to human lengths and shapes.
Skills
Formal Swordsmanship: Aeraul has trained in formal swordsmanship for most of his life now. His style is marked by emphases on tight circles and precise attacks; defenses are almost exclusively limited to parrying and avoidance, though Aeraul can handle himself in a lock-up relatively well. He specializes in the Dao and Jian, with which he has Expert skill. Aeraul is naturally left-handed, and it shows in his swordsmanship – even when using two weapons, he almost always leads with the left.
Informal Swordsmanship: Also known as How To Swing A Sword Bigger Than You Are. When he took part in the first Catacomb Raid beneath Scara Brae, Aeraul took him a souvenir: A cruciform longsword eight feet in length. Since then, he's learned to wield it as a combination of an actual sword and, when sheathed, a staff. While his skill is Above Average in either field, the lack of available schooling for use of such a weapon is obvious.
Saiko Hirei: Another of those ten million exotic martial arts with funny names. Essentially reminiscent of real world Tai Chi with throws and a few grapples and joint locks from Jujutsu. His actual skill with the art is only Above Average, relying heavily on pure strength and speed; each of his blows are more damaging on impact, and his throws tend to be farther and harder than a normal person's. The flaw is that even now, Aeraul's strikes tend to be somewhat inaccurate and his balance isn't exactly perfect either. Saiko Hirei also served as Aeraul's gateway to martial pyromancy, and he has incorporated several of the art's techniques into actual combat spellcraft – listed in the spell section.
Characteristics
Empathic Resonance: As a consequence of his partial orc heritage, Aeraul has a tendency to passively register the emotions of anyone within a ten to fifteen foot radius of himself, growing strongest when he faces someone directly. Because of this, he can read the general emotions of a person or group – and his control has improved enough to pick out individuals in a crowd. He can also keep track of a person's direction, the nature of their emotions, and the overall intention of the person or people feeling it. This power is still a bit of a two-way street though: While Aeraul can detect and even influence the emotions of others (as explained in the spell section), he is also vulnerable to being influenced by others – specifically when in a stressful crowd situation like a riot or large-scale battle, and especially when he hasn't had sufficient time to meditate beforehand. While overwhelmed, Aeraul typically has difficulty maintaining focus and control over his own emotions. This ability is useless for reading actual thoughts.
Half-Orc Strength: Another consequence of his mixed heritage: Aeraul has more strength than a human of comparable size and build – roughly 50% and, in all likelihood, staying that way. His control of this strength is a mixed bag: At some times flawless, and at others he can cause a glass to explode in his hand just by trying to hold it.
Goblinoid Senses: Aeraul has decent vision in situations of poor or extremely low lighting; he can see almost normally up to fifteen feet in low light, and up to ten feet with some effort in complete darkness. His hearing is roughly 25% better than a normal human's, and his sense of smell is 50% better – with a certain tendency to hone in on scents that normal people (and Aeraul himself) consider unpleasant. As another consequence of his heritage, his eyes glow green at the iris, becoming brighter and brighter as lighting grows worse.
Caged Berserker: The most give-and-take of Aeraul's abilities, and the one he would most enjoy being rid of forever. Due to his abnormal make-up, and possibly the result of the nature of his parentage, Aeraul has to walk a perpetual tightrope between being civilized and becoming a raging berserker. The triggers for this rage tend to be smaller things that add up; insults, a loss of emotional control, runs of bad luck and so on. The symptoms of Aeraul nearing Berserker status are most pronounced around his eyes and in his posture. As he loses control of himself, his eyes will gradually turn red and start to glow at the iris. Likewise, he develops an almost inhuman slouch, specifically at the neck, that completely fails to effect the rest of his posture. Once in a rage, Aeraul develops a near immunity to pain and cannot be talked down easily; you have to either wear him down, knock him out, kill him, or pull back and allow him to regain control on his own. This does not make him immune to things like blood loss, but it does make it difficult to knock him out or incapacitate him without killing him outright. Ironically, he's less likely to enter a rage while in battle, since he tends to be happier when fighting. For every day that Aeraul goes without a proper hour's meditation, he suffers a seriously increased chance of going berserk – even more so while in a heavily populated city.
Spells and Spell-like abilities
Pyromancy
Fireball: The oldest magic trick in the book. Generally. Aeraul is able to conjure and throw a basketball-sized ball of fire, up to a range of about twenty yards. He can also cast a ball of fire from the tip of his sword. The ability has a three second cool down rate, and requires at least one arm to pull off. The fire it spawns on impact is generally short-lived. The Fireball's path generally follows the movements of Aeraul's arm or sword when thrown: A pitch will result in an arc, a punch will be straight, so on and so forth.
Dragon's Pyre: Aeraul's most powerful Pyromancy spell, requiring the uninterrupted use of both hands while standing still or airborn. Dragon's Pyre is basically a Fireball on steroids, travelling slower and farther than the lesser Fireball would. Dragon's Pyre explodes on impact, blanketing a ten foot area with fire and letting off a shockwave of heat and pressure for another five or six afterwards. Its maximum range is forty-five yards, it requires a three second charge-up time and another six second cooldown – during which time, no fire spells may be used.
Wyrm's Breath: Before he learned to conjure fire, Aeraul could conjure smoke. He still can, as a desperate counter-attack, by focusing magic into his lungs and literally breathing out a great cloud of pitch black smoke for ten feet in front of him. The smoke lasts approximately two turns – or less, in windy conditions. It's boiling hot to begin with, but quickly cools to normal temperatures. It can be harmful if too much is inhaled, but mostly it's simply a blinding inconvenience that smells oddly of whatever Aeraul's had to eat before he uses it. Aeraul generally uses this as an ace-in-the-hole, as it can and does cause him physical pain and trouble breathing for a few seconds afterwards.
Burning Throw: Flaming Judo. No, really. Aeraul grapples an opponent and hurls them as far and as hard as he can, setting fire to them in the process. The flames are magic in nature and last only a few seconds, but they hurt. Owing to his skills with the martial arts, Aeraul is able to execute this in any situation where he can use his arms – including mid-air grapples.
Firelock: A number of chokehold variants, mostly similar to arm triangle chokes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arm_triangle_choke), worsened in that Aeraul basically sets the opponent on fire in the process. The flames only last for as long as the Firelock is in effect, and do most of their damage through heat and smoke inhalation – nevermind the fact that a 300 pound half-human is trying to strangle you. Aeraul is accustomed to blending Firelocks and Burning Throws, though the transitions are rarely perfect and offer plenty of opportunity to counter or escape.
Other
Fear: An ability Aeraul isn't terribly proud of or fond of using. Fear is a power of disorientation, requiring Aeraul to single out a target and literally glare terror into them. It requires no physical or eye contact; Aeraul just has to stare at the target for three seconds. Fear lasts anywhere from three seconds to one turn, and it suffers from the Law of Diminishing Returns: Aeraul spends a certain measure of his willpower with each Fear, slipping ever closer to a total loss of self-control in the process, while his target builds up more and more immunity with each hit: The first Fear lasts a minimum of three seconds, the second Fear lasts a minimum of two, the third lasts a minimum of one, and anything after that is entirely dependent upon the target's willpower. What effect Fear has is also variable: Most targets suffer jittery nerves and disoriented senses, a few have had terrible hallucinations of their own demise, and one in a hundred may end up fainting on the spot. The attack has a minimum of one whole turn to cool down, and Aeraul requires two turns to regain control of himself if his willpower fails.
Note: The type of effect Fear has is up to the target. It's just a disorientation spell.
Rage: Another empathic power, and one suffering from similar drawbacks to Aeraul's Fear effect...not to mention a gamble of a power to use, in more ways than one. Aeraul's Rage power causes a target to become enraged for at least three seconds – blindingly pissed off. It can have the side effect of causing a target's own powers and abilities to increase in potency. Rage's real usefulness is that while a target might end up tougher, faster and more powerful for a short while, their attacks and defenses are likely to become sloppy and easier to counter. Like Fear, it suffers from the Law of Diminishing Returns, and Aeraul is still loath to use it for obvious reasons. He would never cast it on himself for any reason.
Equipment:
Twin Steel Dao: A pair of heavy-duty two-handed swords with wide backswept blades. In real world terms, these are basically Chinese broadswords. The blades are well kept, the handguards are solid rectangles of steel, and the hilts are two-handed even for a man of Aeraul's size. The pommels consist of a thick steel ring with studs along the exterior. Neither of these is Aeraul's original dao and he does not carry them with much ceremony: One is sheathed almost upside-down on the small of his back, ideal for a left hand draw, and the other is sheathed on his belt, properly positioned for a right-hand draw. The quality of each sword is considered Above Average.
Catacombs Greatsword: A souvenir from Aeraul's first big adventure in Scara Brae. Imagine your classic European broadsword...and then make it eight feet long. Close to seven feet of that length consists of a double-edged steel blade, polished to perfection. The cross guard is roughly three inches long in either direction, bulging into a rectangular shape near the base of the blade, and the hilt is close to a foot in length before you get to the lightly flanged pommel at its base. The blade is polished well enough to have a reflective surface, save for a single stretch of jade-colored alloy down the middle of it. The hand guard is silver in color with a similar jade lining, and the hilt is black with silver and jade rings scattered along its length. Aeraul normally carries it in a solid oak scabbard, lined with steel along the front and back, and ribbed with jade-colored metal in several places. The scabbard is also capped at both ends with steel, and boasts a locking mechanism that requires Aeraul to twist the handle of the sword a little bit in order to unsheath the weapon. Owing to its size, Aeraul generally carries the sword in its scabbard like a travel staff. Also owing to its size, the blade isn't very sharp. When your sword's that big, it doesn't need to be. The weapon's quality is considered Excellent.
Clothing and Armor: Aeraul's clothing and armor, from the boots to the shoulder pauldrons and everything between, is Average. The majority of his armor is padded silk and cloth, durable but nothing special, along with steel plating, bands and studs throughout. Several parts, mainly the boots and Akashiman gauntlets, are primarily leather. A more detailed description can be found in Aeraul's appearance section.
Leather Backpack, Traveler: Vital for any traveler. Whenever he sets out on a job, Aeraul tends to load this with light food, water, a change of clothes, rope, a few small knives and some other bare essentials for a journey on foot or horseback. It bears a thick leather holster for his Dao, and a clasp for holding a proper iron-framed lantern that Aeraul often carries more for comfort than necessity.
Leather Backpack, Adventurer: A much smaller, purpose-built backpack than the traveller counterpart. Consists of a leather strap over each shoulder and a belt that fastens around Aeraul's waist and holds both Dao swords. This backpack is mostly used for when Aeraul is employed as an adventurer or mercenary. It's smaller and generally left empty except for whatever gear Aeraul might need to scale a small mountain, infiltrate an old temple, or grind his way through a dungeon.
Note: When worn into the Arena or a tournament setting, this is empty and serves only as a holster for his sword sheaths. The sole exceptions tend to be darker environments (caves), where the backpack may have either a lantern or a cache of alchemic lights – glowsticks-in-vials – or environments with a lot of climbing, where the backpack may have a grappling hook and some ropes stowed away in it.
History: The living contradiction to every Half-Orc ever born of an Orc father and a Human mother. Aeraul Smythe is the only son of a Human father and an Orc mother, bearing seperate names for both cultures. The story of how he was concieved isn't exactly known or important to Aeraul; his father always described it in minimal details: I spent a year with the Black Sun Tribe and went local. For Aeraul, this is enough. He spent his first two or three years as the runt of an Orcish creche, at which point his mother was killed in a land dispute and his father was recalled to his home offices not long after that – he was an advance scout for an adventuring company that specialized in goblinoid expeditions.
Upon returning home, Aeraul spent a few months adjusting to proper human society before his father was called back out to another expedition. Aeraul himself was sent off to several schools abroad. He endured numerous prejuidices as he moved from school to school, but found measures of acceptance in each one. This was mostly due to his withdrawn nature, his ability to empathize with others, and the fact that he could throw most of his would-be tutors through walls if they angered enough of the students. Around puberty, the problem became so bad that he was shipped off to a monastic school in an attempt to learn some control over himself.
This worked, more or less. Not only did the monetary have the effect of teaching Aeraul a measure of self-control and discipline, the monks also ended up completing the near total disconnect that Aeraul felt towards his Orcish heritage. They did so by treating him not as a half-breed, but as a mere human who happened to have special needs – which is, more or less, how Aeraul views himself these days. After close to a decade in the teachings of the monks, Aeraul came of age and briefly worked for his father's adventuring company; the two even handled a few expeditions together.
Unfortunately, Aeraul had become too accustomed to humans. It showed. Orcs in the tribes they explored quickly grew to bear contempt for him and by the end of his first year with the company, the feeling was mutual. Aeraul parted from the company on good terms, and managed to parlay his experiences there into a relatively cushy job as a caravan and seaship navigator. He grew restless after a while, found his way to Alerar and spent a few unpleasant months working as everything from a manual laborer to a barely legal underground pit fighter. Not long after that, he journeyed through the lands of Raiaera, and found the Elves there to be even worse than their dark-skinned cousins; all the pretentiousness, more of the prejuidice, and none of the contributions. He stayed long enough to gain a mild understanding of local religion and bardic traditions, then headed through Corone just a few months short of the civil war currently wracking that kingdom.
Incidentally, his time spent in Radasanth remains the only time when Aeraul has ever truly feared for his own safety. Not because of any background prejuidices, as he was long used to those, but because of the sense of dread, fear and tension that built up in the city. He left after less than a week and, much to his own chargrin, again took up the job of navigating a seaship for about a month before finally making his way into the city of Scara Brae and its surrounding territories.
He's been there ever since; a rough two or three years, give or take a month. His occupancies have varied from small shacks to makeshift campsites to third-story apartments, and his jobs have often involved the guidance of smaller caravans or adventuring parties from the city to their destinations and back again. Once in a while, he's gone so far as to play mediator between Human and Goblinoid interests, and even acted as a negotiator with local Elves on behalf of Goblin's Cove once or twice. As a local activist, he's also played a role in helping to 'civilize' visiting Orcs and their ilk. Once in a while, and much more frequently when tensions run high and the blood gets boiling, Aeraul has taken to duelling on behalf of others as a means of settling disputes, and he's occasionally acted as a mentoring figure for several younger Humans and Goblinoids.
In general, he's stayed true to his nature and refrained from heavy social contact; he's the type of man with a lot of business connections and few friends or enemies to speak of.
Name: Aeraul Smythe (Prefered, Human name), Malgor Kildrake of the Black Sun Tribe (Rarely used, Orc name)
Age: 27
Race: Half-Human, Half-Orc
Hair Color: Glossy black
Eye Color: Light green, situationally phospherescent red or green
Height: 6'6"
Weight: 310 lbs.
Primary Occupation: Adventurer, Mercenary (Company unknown)
Secondary Occupations: Navigator, Tourguide, Negotiator, Scholar, Philosopher, Swordsman
Languages Spoken: Common (Tradespeak), Elven, Aleraran and some Orcish
Personality: Aeraul is a person defined by three words: Quiet and reserved. He's the living, breathing antithesis of your standard orc: Neither undisciplined or rowdy, neither honor-obsessed or remotely noble. He's a thoughtful intellectual who has a poor sense of humor, spends most of his free time with his face in a book, and he meditates constantly – at least one to three hours daily. Empathic to a fault due to his half-orc heritage, Aeraul can sense and is somewhat influenced by the emotions of others – more so in a crowded setting, and even more than that when he hasn't meditated for more than a day. The longer he goes without meditation, the more Aeraul runs the risk of falling into a blind animalistic rage at the drop of a dime. Unlike most half-breeds, Aeraul considers himself a true Human being; he disdains most orcs and their ways as being primitive and barbaric. He harbors a deep contempt for Raiaeran Elves, and a slight loathing for their Aleraran cousins. While he once professed pacifism, Aeraul now holds no illusions about fighting and facing danger: It's literally in his blood, and he no longer feels shame about seeking it out.
Appearance: A giant among humans and a shrimp among the orcs of his mother's tribe and trope. Aeraul comes in at six foot six inches of pure overkill, with a heavily muscled build that shows a lot of definition and precious few scars. Said lack of scars is due more to his deceptive agility than anything else. His hair is glossy black, cut short and combed back very neatly, with well-trimmed sideburns leading to an elegantly thin, short beard that runs along his jawline and chin. Excepting his green skin, his almost square jawline and barely pointed ears, Aeraul generally looks like a human being. His eyes are dark green in most lighting, turning phosphorescent in darker conditions and red when angered. When “on the job” and looking for action, Aeraul typically wears a pair of functionally lose brown pants, a black long-sleeved shirt and a knee-length purple silk vest woven with steel chainmail and strategically placed steel plates. Added to this are customized Akashiman men – leather gauntlets with steel bands on the wrist and studs along each knuckle and finger – and steel pauldrons. Lastly are a pair of heavy-duty boots sporting steel plate across the front of each shin. Whether on the job or not, he usually incorporates a purple silk sash into his outfit. Unlike most orcs and half-orcs, Aeraul keeps his fangs and nails filed down to human lengths and shapes.
Skills
Formal Swordsmanship: Aeraul has trained in formal swordsmanship for most of his life now. His style is marked by emphases on tight circles and precise attacks; defenses are almost exclusively limited to parrying and avoidance, though Aeraul can handle himself in a lock-up relatively well. He specializes in the Dao and Jian, with which he has Expert skill. Aeraul is naturally left-handed, and it shows in his swordsmanship – even when using two weapons, he almost always leads with the left.
Informal Swordsmanship: Also known as How To Swing A Sword Bigger Than You Are. When he took part in the first Catacomb Raid beneath Scara Brae, Aeraul took him a souvenir: A cruciform longsword eight feet in length. Since then, he's learned to wield it as a combination of an actual sword and, when sheathed, a staff. While his skill is Above Average in either field, the lack of available schooling for use of such a weapon is obvious.
Saiko Hirei: Another of those ten million exotic martial arts with funny names. Essentially reminiscent of real world Tai Chi with throws and a few grapples and joint locks from Jujutsu. His actual skill with the art is only Above Average, relying heavily on pure strength and speed; each of his blows are more damaging on impact, and his throws tend to be farther and harder than a normal person's. The flaw is that even now, Aeraul's strikes tend to be somewhat inaccurate and his balance isn't exactly perfect either. Saiko Hirei also served as Aeraul's gateway to martial pyromancy, and he has incorporated several of the art's techniques into actual combat spellcraft – listed in the spell section.
Characteristics
Empathic Resonance: As a consequence of his partial orc heritage, Aeraul has a tendency to passively register the emotions of anyone within a ten to fifteen foot radius of himself, growing strongest when he faces someone directly. Because of this, he can read the general emotions of a person or group – and his control has improved enough to pick out individuals in a crowd. He can also keep track of a person's direction, the nature of their emotions, and the overall intention of the person or people feeling it. This power is still a bit of a two-way street though: While Aeraul can detect and even influence the emotions of others (as explained in the spell section), he is also vulnerable to being influenced by others – specifically when in a stressful crowd situation like a riot or large-scale battle, and especially when he hasn't had sufficient time to meditate beforehand. While overwhelmed, Aeraul typically has difficulty maintaining focus and control over his own emotions. This ability is useless for reading actual thoughts.
Half-Orc Strength: Another consequence of his mixed heritage: Aeraul has more strength than a human of comparable size and build – roughly 50% and, in all likelihood, staying that way. His control of this strength is a mixed bag: At some times flawless, and at others he can cause a glass to explode in his hand just by trying to hold it.
Goblinoid Senses: Aeraul has decent vision in situations of poor or extremely low lighting; he can see almost normally up to fifteen feet in low light, and up to ten feet with some effort in complete darkness. His hearing is roughly 25% better than a normal human's, and his sense of smell is 50% better – with a certain tendency to hone in on scents that normal people (and Aeraul himself) consider unpleasant. As another consequence of his heritage, his eyes glow green at the iris, becoming brighter and brighter as lighting grows worse.
Caged Berserker: The most give-and-take of Aeraul's abilities, and the one he would most enjoy being rid of forever. Due to his abnormal make-up, and possibly the result of the nature of his parentage, Aeraul has to walk a perpetual tightrope between being civilized and becoming a raging berserker. The triggers for this rage tend to be smaller things that add up; insults, a loss of emotional control, runs of bad luck and so on. The symptoms of Aeraul nearing Berserker status are most pronounced around his eyes and in his posture. As he loses control of himself, his eyes will gradually turn red and start to glow at the iris. Likewise, he develops an almost inhuman slouch, specifically at the neck, that completely fails to effect the rest of his posture. Once in a rage, Aeraul develops a near immunity to pain and cannot be talked down easily; you have to either wear him down, knock him out, kill him, or pull back and allow him to regain control on his own. This does not make him immune to things like blood loss, but it does make it difficult to knock him out or incapacitate him without killing him outright. Ironically, he's less likely to enter a rage while in battle, since he tends to be happier when fighting. For every day that Aeraul goes without a proper hour's meditation, he suffers a seriously increased chance of going berserk – even more so while in a heavily populated city.
Spells and Spell-like abilities
Pyromancy
Fireball: The oldest magic trick in the book. Generally. Aeraul is able to conjure and throw a basketball-sized ball of fire, up to a range of about twenty yards. He can also cast a ball of fire from the tip of his sword. The ability has a three second cool down rate, and requires at least one arm to pull off. The fire it spawns on impact is generally short-lived. The Fireball's path generally follows the movements of Aeraul's arm or sword when thrown: A pitch will result in an arc, a punch will be straight, so on and so forth.
Dragon's Pyre: Aeraul's most powerful Pyromancy spell, requiring the uninterrupted use of both hands while standing still or airborn. Dragon's Pyre is basically a Fireball on steroids, travelling slower and farther than the lesser Fireball would. Dragon's Pyre explodes on impact, blanketing a ten foot area with fire and letting off a shockwave of heat and pressure for another five or six afterwards. Its maximum range is forty-five yards, it requires a three second charge-up time and another six second cooldown – during which time, no fire spells may be used.
Wyrm's Breath: Before he learned to conjure fire, Aeraul could conjure smoke. He still can, as a desperate counter-attack, by focusing magic into his lungs and literally breathing out a great cloud of pitch black smoke for ten feet in front of him. The smoke lasts approximately two turns – or less, in windy conditions. It's boiling hot to begin with, but quickly cools to normal temperatures. It can be harmful if too much is inhaled, but mostly it's simply a blinding inconvenience that smells oddly of whatever Aeraul's had to eat before he uses it. Aeraul generally uses this as an ace-in-the-hole, as it can and does cause him physical pain and trouble breathing for a few seconds afterwards.
Burning Throw: Flaming Judo. No, really. Aeraul grapples an opponent and hurls them as far and as hard as he can, setting fire to them in the process. The flames are magic in nature and last only a few seconds, but they hurt. Owing to his skills with the martial arts, Aeraul is able to execute this in any situation where he can use his arms – including mid-air grapples.
Firelock: A number of chokehold variants, mostly similar to arm triangle chokes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arm_triangle_choke), worsened in that Aeraul basically sets the opponent on fire in the process. The flames only last for as long as the Firelock is in effect, and do most of their damage through heat and smoke inhalation – nevermind the fact that a 300 pound half-human is trying to strangle you. Aeraul is accustomed to blending Firelocks and Burning Throws, though the transitions are rarely perfect and offer plenty of opportunity to counter or escape.
Other
Fear: An ability Aeraul isn't terribly proud of or fond of using. Fear is a power of disorientation, requiring Aeraul to single out a target and literally glare terror into them. It requires no physical or eye contact; Aeraul just has to stare at the target for three seconds. Fear lasts anywhere from three seconds to one turn, and it suffers from the Law of Diminishing Returns: Aeraul spends a certain measure of his willpower with each Fear, slipping ever closer to a total loss of self-control in the process, while his target builds up more and more immunity with each hit: The first Fear lasts a minimum of three seconds, the second Fear lasts a minimum of two, the third lasts a minimum of one, and anything after that is entirely dependent upon the target's willpower. What effect Fear has is also variable: Most targets suffer jittery nerves and disoriented senses, a few have had terrible hallucinations of their own demise, and one in a hundred may end up fainting on the spot. The attack has a minimum of one whole turn to cool down, and Aeraul requires two turns to regain control of himself if his willpower fails.
Note: The type of effect Fear has is up to the target. It's just a disorientation spell.
Rage: Another empathic power, and one suffering from similar drawbacks to Aeraul's Fear effect...not to mention a gamble of a power to use, in more ways than one. Aeraul's Rage power causes a target to become enraged for at least three seconds – blindingly pissed off. It can have the side effect of causing a target's own powers and abilities to increase in potency. Rage's real usefulness is that while a target might end up tougher, faster and more powerful for a short while, their attacks and defenses are likely to become sloppy and easier to counter. Like Fear, it suffers from the Law of Diminishing Returns, and Aeraul is still loath to use it for obvious reasons. He would never cast it on himself for any reason.
Equipment:
Twin Steel Dao: A pair of heavy-duty two-handed swords with wide backswept blades. In real world terms, these are basically Chinese broadswords. The blades are well kept, the handguards are solid rectangles of steel, and the hilts are two-handed even for a man of Aeraul's size. The pommels consist of a thick steel ring with studs along the exterior. Neither of these is Aeraul's original dao and he does not carry them with much ceremony: One is sheathed almost upside-down on the small of his back, ideal for a left hand draw, and the other is sheathed on his belt, properly positioned for a right-hand draw. The quality of each sword is considered Above Average.
Catacombs Greatsword: A souvenir from Aeraul's first big adventure in Scara Brae. Imagine your classic European broadsword...and then make it eight feet long. Close to seven feet of that length consists of a double-edged steel blade, polished to perfection. The cross guard is roughly three inches long in either direction, bulging into a rectangular shape near the base of the blade, and the hilt is close to a foot in length before you get to the lightly flanged pommel at its base. The blade is polished well enough to have a reflective surface, save for a single stretch of jade-colored alloy down the middle of it. The hand guard is silver in color with a similar jade lining, and the hilt is black with silver and jade rings scattered along its length. Aeraul normally carries it in a solid oak scabbard, lined with steel along the front and back, and ribbed with jade-colored metal in several places. The scabbard is also capped at both ends with steel, and boasts a locking mechanism that requires Aeraul to twist the handle of the sword a little bit in order to unsheath the weapon. Owing to its size, Aeraul generally carries the sword in its scabbard like a travel staff. Also owing to its size, the blade isn't very sharp. When your sword's that big, it doesn't need to be. The weapon's quality is considered Excellent.
Clothing and Armor: Aeraul's clothing and armor, from the boots to the shoulder pauldrons and everything between, is Average. The majority of his armor is padded silk and cloth, durable but nothing special, along with steel plating, bands and studs throughout. Several parts, mainly the boots and Akashiman gauntlets, are primarily leather. A more detailed description can be found in Aeraul's appearance section.
Leather Backpack, Traveler: Vital for any traveler. Whenever he sets out on a job, Aeraul tends to load this with light food, water, a change of clothes, rope, a few small knives and some other bare essentials for a journey on foot or horseback. It bears a thick leather holster for his Dao, and a clasp for holding a proper iron-framed lantern that Aeraul often carries more for comfort than necessity.
Leather Backpack, Adventurer: A much smaller, purpose-built backpack than the traveller counterpart. Consists of a leather strap over each shoulder and a belt that fastens around Aeraul's waist and holds both Dao swords. This backpack is mostly used for when Aeraul is employed as an adventurer or mercenary. It's smaller and generally left empty except for whatever gear Aeraul might need to scale a small mountain, infiltrate an old temple, or grind his way through a dungeon.
Note: When worn into the Arena or a tournament setting, this is empty and serves only as a holster for his sword sheaths. The sole exceptions tend to be darker environments (caves), where the backpack may have either a lantern or a cache of alchemic lights – glowsticks-in-vials – or environments with a lot of climbing, where the backpack may have a grappling hook and some ropes stowed away in it.
History: The living contradiction to every Half-Orc ever born of an Orc father and a Human mother. Aeraul Smythe is the only son of a Human father and an Orc mother, bearing seperate names for both cultures. The story of how he was concieved isn't exactly known or important to Aeraul; his father always described it in minimal details: I spent a year with the Black Sun Tribe and went local. For Aeraul, this is enough. He spent his first two or three years as the runt of an Orcish creche, at which point his mother was killed in a land dispute and his father was recalled to his home offices not long after that – he was an advance scout for an adventuring company that specialized in goblinoid expeditions.
Upon returning home, Aeraul spent a few months adjusting to proper human society before his father was called back out to another expedition. Aeraul himself was sent off to several schools abroad. He endured numerous prejuidices as he moved from school to school, but found measures of acceptance in each one. This was mostly due to his withdrawn nature, his ability to empathize with others, and the fact that he could throw most of his would-be tutors through walls if they angered enough of the students. Around puberty, the problem became so bad that he was shipped off to a monastic school in an attempt to learn some control over himself.
This worked, more or less. Not only did the monetary have the effect of teaching Aeraul a measure of self-control and discipline, the monks also ended up completing the near total disconnect that Aeraul felt towards his Orcish heritage. They did so by treating him not as a half-breed, but as a mere human who happened to have special needs – which is, more or less, how Aeraul views himself these days. After close to a decade in the teachings of the monks, Aeraul came of age and briefly worked for his father's adventuring company; the two even handled a few expeditions together.
Unfortunately, Aeraul had become too accustomed to humans. It showed. Orcs in the tribes they explored quickly grew to bear contempt for him and by the end of his first year with the company, the feeling was mutual. Aeraul parted from the company on good terms, and managed to parlay his experiences there into a relatively cushy job as a caravan and seaship navigator. He grew restless after a while, found his way to Alerar and spent a few unpleasant months working as everything from a manual laborer to a barely legal underground pit fighter. Not long after that, he journeyed through the lands of Raiaera, and found the Elves there to be even worse than their dark-skinned cousins; all the pretentiousness, more of the prejuidice, and none of the contributions. He stayed long enough to gain a mild understanding of local religion and bardic traditions, then headed through Corone just a few months short of the civil war currently wracking that kingdom.
Incidentally, his time spent in Radasanth remains the only time when Aeraul has ever truly feared for his own safety. Not because of any background prejuidices, as he was long used to those, but because of the sense of dread, fear and tension that built up in the city. He left after less than a week and, much to his own chargrin, again took up the job of navigating a seaship for about a month before finally making his way into the city of Scara Brae and its surrounding territories.
He's been there ever since; a rough two or three years, give or take a month. His occupancies have varied from small shacks to makeshift campsites to third-story apartments, and his jobs have often involved the guidance of smaller caravans or adventuring parties from the city to their destinations and back again. Once in a while, he's gone so far as to play mediator between Human and Goblinoid interests, and even acted as a negotiator with local Elves on behalf of Goblin's Cove once or twice. As a local activist, he's also played a role in helping to 'civilize' visiting Orcs and their ilk. Once in a while, and much more frequently when tensions run high and the blood gets boiling, Aeraul has taken to duelling on behalf of others as a means of settling disputes, and he's occasionally acted as a mentoring figure for several younger Humans and Goblinoids.
In general, he's stayed true to his nature and refrained from heavy social contact; he's the type of man with a lot of business connections and few friends or enemies to speak of.