somnambulist
04-06-15, 10:32 PM
.
"There is a drowsy state, between sleeping and waking, when you dream more in
five minutes with your eyes half open, and yourself half conscious of everything
that is passing around you, than you would in five nights with your eyes fast
closed, and your senses wrapt in perfect unconsciousness. At such time, a mortal
knows just enough of what his mind is doing, to form some glimmering conception
of its mighty powers, its bounding from earth and spurning time and space, when
freed from the restraint of its corporeal associate."
Dickens, Oliver Twist
Name: Josuf "Jos" Skolstrazh
Age: 17
Race: Salvic Human
Occupation: Eldest living son of Obram Skolstrazh, Lord Warden of Peregrine Reach
Appearance:
Jos is a robust young man of strong Salvic stock; he stands about 177 cm (5'10") tall and weighs about 75kg (165 lbs). His coloration is somewhat peculiar by Salvic standards, with dark hair, hazel eyes, and a somewhat dusky complexion; rumors occasionally slip that he has some orcish blood on his mother's side.
Jos has a fierceness about him, and his sneers and genuine smiles are difficult to distinguish. He carries himself with all the pride of a lordling, and none of the grace.
Personality:
Jos reacts to fear with anger, and to happiness with wilding zeal. His perception is sharp, but untempered by patience, and he is quick to give voice to his judgements of others. He is a fervent believer in the Sway and fears them, though he puts little stock in their supposed goodness. He approaches friendships with the same unbridled ferocity he brings to everything else, and his loyalty is unshakeable. He is driven by a peculiar kind of hope, absent of any expectation that the world or its people will turn out as good as they ought to, but perpetually holding them to a high standard just the same.
“...a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is
that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.”
Wilde, The Critic as Artist
History:
Peregrine Reach is a sprawling expanse of tundra, bluffs, and clefted ridges in Salvar, where sparse settlements nestle under the wind. It stretches north and east of Archen into the southernmost quarter of the Sulgoran Steppes, and historically was the site of constant incursions from Skavian marauders seeking a foothold in Salvar. The first Skolstrazh was appointed Lord Warden of the Reach by the King some centuries ago and charged with fortifying the border against invasion.
In more recent generations, the Skavian threat diminished, and with it the prestige of House Skolstrazh. Still, the noble family takes pride in their responsibility, and though the garrisons have grown smaller and calls to arms less frequent, the Lord Warden maintains the holds of the Reach with no less solemnity and diligence.
Jos was born the third son of his lordship Obram Skolstrazh in 1798, 10 years before the outbreak of the Civil War. He was a healthy child, boisterous, and never one to defer to his elder brothers' seniority. While it was never expected that he would inherit the Wardenship, he was nonetheless groomed to take some minor title, being educated accordingly in history, warfare, and diplomacy. When he was four, his mother gave birth to Obram's fourth and final son.
When Jos was 10, Peregrine Reach received word of Justice Testhan's excommunication of King Rathaxea, and subsequent excommunication of the royalist nobility. The news dealt a shocking blow to House Skolstrazh, which had always been devout followers of the Church and had been for the most part removed from the politics of Knife's Edge--but as vassals to a royalist Boyar, they were included in the Justice's decree.
Word soon arrived that the excommunication could be reversed for any noble houses that committed themselves to support of the Sway. At the same time, the Lord Warden received a call to arms from the throne, requiring him to fulfill his duty as vassal to his Boyar and field troops in the name of the King.
Judging his family's souls worth more than his honor, Obram pledged for the Church. He pulled what troops could be spared from the border garrisons, and he and his two elder sons, who were of fighting age, led them to war.
It was about this time that Jos started having dreams.
In the beginning, they were always the same: a forest, moonlit, skeletal, and gripped with frost, and sometimes--only sometimes--a voice, sourceless among the trees, speaking a language Jos couldn't understand. He confided in the Reach's priest, Father Mordysh, who judged the dreams to be nothing out of the ordinary. He taught Jos some prayers for protection from the night and assured him that the dreams could not harm him.
For two years, the dreams became more frequent. Occasionally, as he wandered through the moonlit forest, Jos would find himself in twisted reflections of other places, as though he had stumbled onto a stage mid-play. He reported what he saw in confession, and sometimes the priest seemed troubled, but it was not until Jos began seeing things in dreams that he later saw in reality, or heard about in reports from the war, that he understood Father Mordysh's fear.
Jos had been training extensively until that point under the assumption that when he was ready, he would join his father and brothers on the battlefield. As he approached maturity, however, the house armsmaster declared that he was not yet fit for battle. Jos was not told that Father Mordysh had bidden the armsmaster do so, hoping to keep his affliction from attracting the attention of higher officials in the Church.
Shortly thereafter, Jos discovered he was not alone in the forest.
The sourceless voice in the trees was joined by whispers, growlings--sometimes silent presences that were felt rather than heard. Where once he had wandered, Jos now had to creep cautiously, and flee if the creatures drew too close.
Finally, in his thirteenth year, while fleeing through a dream, he passed through an image of a bloodied battlefield and saw his eldest brother being cleaved in two by an opponent. Frozen with terror, he lost his lead on the nigthmares chasing him and awoke to find deep lacerations covering his body.
Mordysh began monitoring him closely, giving him a more extensive regimen of prayers and subjecting him to various forms of exorcism. But the dreams continued, and shortly thereafter, they received word that Jos's brother had fallen in battle, just as he had seen.
Jos's education carried on, though the armsmaster continued to judge him unfit for combat despite steady progress. As a diplomat, Jos showed a talent for canny social perception, though this was undercut by a lack of tact or patience for noble double-speak.
Reports from the front became increasingly dire, and the situation at home was no better. Territory and lives were being lost faster and faster, and while Peregrine Reach itself was too far removed to become a theater of war, the increasingly heavy taxes for the war effort were breaking the already-precarious livelihood of its people. Then Jos dreamt again, and saw his second brother die.
Once word circulated that Jos was now heir to the Wardenship, it wasn't long before someone did something desperate. While Jos was out riding, a pair of destitute peasants kidnapped him and sent his little fingers to Lady Skolstrazh with a demand for ransom.
However, the demand had scarcely arrived before word came that Jos had been found, badly mauled, wandering senselessly in a nearby village. When guardsmen followed his trail back to the hovel where he had been held, they found it destroyed, with the eviscerated remains of the kidnappers within.
While Jos eventually recovered from his wounds, the townsfolk, the staff at Skolstrazh Hold, and even Father Mordysh and his mother could not look at him the same. When the war ended in defeat in 1812 and his father returned home alone, he was met without joy. Jos was 14.
In the aftermath of the war, Peregrine Reach was not seized as were the holdings of many nobles who had sided with the Church. It was bankrupt, not especially profitable, and no one in the League of States wanted the distinctionless responsibility of fortifying the border with the Steppes. So Obram Skolstrazh remained Lord Warden of the Reach, less two heirs and any prestige and influence he may have held before the war, and with the addition of a crippling punitive tax to the Boyars. He retained two sons, the elder of which, his people were increasingly convinced, was some breed of demon.
And still, Jos continues to dream.
"How blessed are some people, whose lives have no fears, no dreads, to whom
sleep is a blessing that comes nightly, and brings nothing but sweet dreams."
Stoker, Dracula
Skills:
Excellent axeplay.
Excellent horsemanship.
Excellent knowledge of the Liand and Sway lore.
Excellent knowledge of Salvic court etiquette
Good knowledge of military and political history
Good fluency in Old Salvic, assorted Skavian languages
Good diplomat.
Good brawler.
Good axe thrower.
Good survivalist.
Abilities:
Waking dreams. Under certain conditions, Jos can cause dream worlds to intersect with the waking world. Such intersections impact a specific area, usually with a radius of no more than 30 yards, which may shift with Jos's attention. Within such an intersection, dream and waking worlds exist together, allowing creatures native to the dream world to manifest in waking reality.
The degree to which dream creatures can impact waking reality depends on the strength of the intersection; at the moment, Jos can only create very shallow intersections, so manifested dream creatures can be perceived and felt, but cannot deal physical damage except to Jos.
The difficulty Jos has in merging worlds is proportional to the degree his conscious mind is present; when he is fully awake and alert, opening an intersection is effectively impossible. When he is dazed, or exhausted, or shocked--any state in which his conscious mind cedes some authority to the unconscious--it becomes easier. Intersections form most readily just as he is entering or waking from deep sleep.
While Jos never has total control over dream creatures, they are at least somewhat directable initially. But if the intersection persists longer than a minute, its boundaries become less stable, its denizens less easily swayed and more likely to turn on him. Jos can typically open a bridge twice per day safely, but if he tries again without sleeping, he risks the dream tearing him apart.
Lifelike visions. Occasionally in dreams, Jos catches glimpses of past, present, or future events. (Where these revelations pertain to other characters, they require respective players' approval.)
High pain tolerance. His experiences in dreams have left Jos with a pain threshold about twice as high as an average human's. However, while it takes a lot of pain to faze him, he is no less susceptible to actual damage.
“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses
of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of
the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make
it possible.”
Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom
Equipment:
Two iron single-handed battle axes
Three iron throwing axes, which can double as hatchets
Familiars:
Crescent, mare. Crescent is a kaldblodstraver mare Jos found in the forest outside Skolstrazh Hold shortly after his father and brothers left for the war. Peculiarly for her breed, Crescent is a silver dapple. She is mischievous at the best of times, and will rarely behave for anyone other than Jos.
"We are such stuff / As dreams are made on, and our little life / Is rounded
with a sleep."
Shakespeare, The Tempest
"There is a drowsy state, between sleeping and waking, when you dream more in
five minutes with your eyes half open, and yourself half conscious of everything
that is passing around you, than you would in five nights with your eyes fast
closed, and your senses wrapt in perfect unconsciousness. At such time, a mortal
knows just enough of what his mind is doing, to form some glimmering conception
of its mighty powers, its bounding from earth and spurning time and space, when
freed from the restraint of its corporeal associate."
Dickens, Oliver Twist
Name: Josuf "Jos" Skolstrazh
Age: 17
Race: Salvic Human
Occupation: Eldest living son of Obram Skolstrazh, Lord Warden of Peregrine Reach
Appearance:
Jos is a robust young man of strong Salvic stock; he stands about 177 cm (5'10") tall and weighs about 75kg (165 lbs). His coloration is somewhat peculiar by Salvic standards, with dark hair, hazel eyes, and a somewhat dusky complexion; rumors occasionally slip that he has some orcish blood on his mother's side.
Jos has a fierceness about him, and his sneers and genuine smiles are difficult to distinguish. He carries himself with all the pride of a lordling, and none of the grace.
Personality:
Jos reacts to fear with anger, and to happiness with wilding zeal. His perception is sharp, but untempered by patience, and he is quick to give voice to his judgements of others. He is a fervent believer in the Sway and fears them, though he puts little stock in their supposed goodness. He approaches friendships with the same unbridled ferocity he brings to everything else, and his loyalty is unshakeable. He is driven by a peculiar kind of hope, absent of any expectation that the world or its people will turn out as good as they ought to, but perpetually holding them to a high standard just the same.
“...a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is
that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.”
Wilde, The Critic as Artist
History:
Peregrine Reach is a sprawling expanse of tundra, bluffs, and clefted ridges in Salvar, where sparse settlements nestle under the wind. It stretches north and east of Archen into the southernmost quarter of the Sulgoran Steppes, and historically was the site of constant incursions from Skavian marauders seeking a foothold in Salvar. The first Skolstrazh was appointed Lord Warden of the Reach by the King some centuries ago and charged with fortifying the border against invasion.
In more recent generations, the Skavian threat diminished, and with it the prestige of House Skolstrazh. Still, the noble family takes pride in their responsibility, and though the garrisons have grown smaller and calls to arms less frequent, the Lord Warden maintains the holds of the Reach with no less solemnity and diligence.
Jos was born the third son of his lordship Obram Skolstrazh in 1798, 10 years before the outbreak of the Civil War. He was a healthy child, boisterous, and never one to defer to his elder brothers' seniority. While it was never expected that he would inherit the Wardenship, he was nonetheless groomed to take some minor title, being educated accordingly in history, warfare, and diplomacy. When he was four, his mother gave birth to Obram's fourth and final son.
When Jos was 10, Peregrine Reach received word of Justice Testhan's excommunication of King Rathaxea, and subsequent excommunication of the royalist nobility. The news dealt a shocking blow to House Skolstrazh, which had always been devout followers of the Church and had been for the most part removed from the politics of Knife's Edge--but as vassals to a royalist Boyar, they were included in the Justice's decree.
Word soon arrived that the excommunication could be reversed for any noble houses that committed themselves to support of the Sway. At the same time, the Lord Warden received a call to arms from the throne, requiring him to fulfill his duty as vassal to his Boyar and field troops in the name of the King.
Judging his family's souls worth more than his honor, Obram pledged for the Church. He pulled what troops could be spared from the border garrisons, and he and his two elder sons, who were of fighting age, led them to war.
It was about this time that Jos started having dreams.
In the beginning, they were always the same: a forest, moonlit, skeletal, and gripped with frost, and sometimes--only sometimes--a voice, sourceless among the trees, speaking a language Jos couldn't understand. He confided in the Reach's priest, Father Mordysh, who judged the dreams to be nothing out of the ordinary. He taught Jos some prayers for protection from the night and assured him that the dreams could not harm him.
For two years, the dreams became more frequent. Occasionally, as he wandered through the moonlit forest, Jos would find himself in twisted reflections of other places, as though he had stumbled onto a stage mid-play. He reported what he saw in confession, and sometimes the priest seemed troubled, but it was not until Jos began seeing things in dreams that he later saw in reality, or heard about in reports from the war, that he understood Father Mordysh's fear.
Jos had been training extensively until that point under the assumption that when he was ready, he would join his father and brothers on the battlefield. As he approached maturity, however, the house armsmaster declared that he was not yet fit for battle. Jos was not told that Father Mordysh had bidden the armsmaster do so, hoping to keep his affliction from attracting the attention of higher officials in the Church.
Shortly thereafter, Jos discovered he was not alone in the forest.
The sourceless voice in the trees was joined by whispers, growlings--sometimes silent presences that were felt rather than heard. Where once he had wandered, Jos now had to creep cautiously, and flee if the creatures drew too close.
Finally, in his thirteenth year, while fleeing through a dream, he passed through an image of a bloodied battlefield and saw his eldest brother being cleaved in two by an opponent. Frozen with terror, he lost his lead on the nigthmares chasing him and awoke to find deep lacerations covering his body.
Mordysh began monitoring him closely, giving him a more extensive regimen of prayers and subjecting him to various forms of exorcism. But the dreams continued, and shortly thereafter, they received word that Jos's brother had fallen in battle, just as he had seen.
Jos's education carried on, though the armsmaster continued to judge him unfit for combat despite steady progress. As a diplomat, Jos showed a talent for canny social perception, though this was undercut by a lack of tact or patience for noble double-speak.
Reports from the front became increasingly dire, and the situation at home was no better. Territory and lives were being lost faster and faster, and while Peregrine Reach itself was too far removed to become a theater of war, the increasingly heavy taxes for the war effort were breaking the already-precarious livelihood of its people. Then Jos dreamt again, and saw his second brother die.
Once word circulated that Jos was now heir to the Wardenship, it wasn't long before someone did something desperate. While Jos was out riding, a pair of destitute peasants kidnapped him and sent his little fingers to Lady Skolstrazh with a demand for ransom.
However, the demand had scarcely arrived before word came that Jos had been found, badly mauled, wandering senselessly in a nearby village. When guardsmen followed his trail back to the hovel where he had been held, they found it destroyed, with the eviscerated remains of the kidnappers within.
While Jos eventually recovered from his wounds, the townsfolk, the staff at Skolstrazh Hold, and even Father Mordysh and his mother could not look at him the same. When the war ended in defeat in 1812 and his father returned home alone, he was met without joy. Jos was 14.
In the aftermath of the war, Peregrine Reach was not seized as were the holdings of many nobles who had sided with the Church. It was bankrupt, not especially profitable, and no one in the League of States wanted the distinctionless responsibility of fortifying the border with the Steppes. So Obram Skolstrazh remained Lord Warden of the Reach, less two heirs and any prestige and influence he may have held before the war, and with the addition of a crippling punitive tax to the Boyars. He retained two sons, the elder of which, his people were increasingly convinced, was some breed of demon.
And still, Jos continues to dream.
"How blessed are some people, whose lives have no fears, no dreads, to whom
sleep is a blessing that comes nightly, and brings nothing but sweet dreams."
Stoker, Dracula
Skills:
Excellent axeplay.
Excellent horsemanship.
Excellent knowledge of the Liand and Sway lore.
Excellent knowledge of Salvic court etiquette
Good knowledge of military and political history
Good fluency in Old Salvic, assorted Skavian languages
Good diplomat.
Good brawler.
Good axe thrower.
Good survivalist.
Abilities:
Waking dreams. Under certain conditions, Jos can cause dream worlds to intersect with the waking world. Such intersections impact a specific area, usually with a radius of no more than 30 yards, which may shift with Jos's attention. Within such an intersection, dream and waking worlds exist together, allowing creatures native to the dream world to manifest in waking reality.
The degree to which dream creatures can impact waking reality depends on the strength of the intersection; at the moment, Jos can only create very shallow intersections, so manifested dream creatures can be perceived and felt, but cannot deal physical damage except to Jos.
The difficulty Jos has in merging worlds is proportional to the degree his conscious mind is present; when he is fully awake and alert, opening an intersection is effectively impossible. When he is dazed, or exhausted, or shocked--any state in which his conscious mind cedes some authority to the unconscious--it becomes easier. Intersections form most readily just as he is entering or waking from deep sleep.
While Jos never has total control over dream creatures, they are at least somewhat directable initially. But if the intersection persists longer than a minute, its boundaries become less stable, its denizens less easily swayed and more likely to turn on him. Jos can typically open a bridge twice per day safely, but if he tries again without sleeping, he risks the dream tearing him apart.
Lifelike visions. Occasionally in dreams, Jos catches glimpses of past, present, or future events. (Where these revelations pertain to other characters, they require respective players' approval.)
High pain tolerance. His experiences in dreams have left Jos with a pain threshold about twice as high as an average human's. However, while it takes a lot of pain to faze him, he is no less susceptible to actual damage.
“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses
of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of
the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make
it possible.”
Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom
Equipment:
Two iron single-handed battle axes
Three iron throwing axes, which can double as hatchets
Familiars:
Crescent, mare. Crescent is a kaldblodstraver mare Jos found in the forest outside Skolstrazh Hold shortly after his father and brothers left for the war. Peculiarly for her breed, Crescent is a silver dapple. She is mischievous at the best of times, and will rarely behave for anyone other than Jos.
"We are such stuff / As dreams are made on, and our little life / Is rounded
with a sleep."
Shakespeare, The Tempest