fireandsmoke | Fade Rift Application

PLAYER

Name: Lari
Age: 30
Contact:

kriskristofferson
Other Characters: N/A
Interests: I’m a huge fan of playing to my character’s strengths and weaknesses, and in this particular case Sarkan has a lot of experience with political intrigue and battling evil corruption. I’d love to be able to forge on with a small group of folks (wizards/witches or not) and experiment with what works against demons and what does not. I’d also love for him to investigate the rifts and learn if there is any way to control them or determine where they could lead/open up. An interesting angle I might want to try is for Sarkan to investigate and even dabble in forbidden Blood Magic; he is just the sort of person who would want to study it at length, but not necessarily use it regularly except as a last resort in a desperate battle. Mostly I’m looking for a fun and loose group of individuals that mesh well with my play style, and if the test drive meme is any indication, then I think I’ve found a new home for myself!

CHARACTER

Name: The Dragon (Sarkan)
Canon/OC: Uprooted by Naomi Novik
Canon Point: Near the end of the book, after battling the Wood Queen and Sarkan decides to leave his crumbling tower and Agnieszka in order to “clean up corruption from the capital city.” In reality, he was running away to sort out and lock up his troubled, romantic thoughts and feelings.
Journal:

fireandsmoke
Age: Roughly 150+ years old

Canon World

Sarkan’s canon world is very much like medieval real-world Poland with its neighboring rival, Russia (plus magic). Sarkan hails from “Polnya,” which is the magical counterpoint to Poland. Polnya has a long and storied history of battling a great evil that emanates from an entity called The Wood, which covers large swaths of land and slowly devours entire villages with corruption, pain, and death. At the same time, Polnya as a nation struggles to maintain a fragile, but mostly peaceful relationship with the neighboring kingdom of “Rosya.” Rosya is Russia’s magical counterpart, and it also borders a portion of the all-consuming, corrupted Wood.  The Wood is at the center of all conflicts currently happening in the land, and it is responsible for pitting Polnya and Rosya against each other. It infects persons and creatures with an all-consuming corruption that is intent to destroy, and so, the two nations unwittingly fall prey to the sentient Wood’s plans of destroying them both with unfounded wars.

Sarkan and other witches/wizards are the only humans able to stand in the Wood’s way. They are able to purge corruption (to a limited extent), destroy corruption, and contain the Wood’s efforts to expand so long as they are vigilant and don’t also get caught up in the Wood’s tricks.

History

Sarkan was ‘discovered’ by the authorities as a three-year-old beggar child. Desperate for warmth, he accidentally set his town ablaze with his magic. He was immediately shipped off to the capital city of Kralia for formal training and education as a future court wizard.

He was not given his official wizard’s name until he passed a set of trials and tests put forth by the court. The name chosen for him was Sarkan, which means “Dragon” in the language of magic.

As a young court wizard, he became entangled with the beautiful Countess Ludmila. Ludmila’s husband fell prey to corruption from the Wood, and so she locked him up. She began an affair with Sarkan, a smashing, young, powerful new court wizard. She manipulated him into falling in love with her before demanding that he save her husband. He spent six months researching cures. Desperate to find an answer to his search, he left the capital and sought out a witch called the Raven, who lived in the tower the Dragon would eventually call his home. At the time, she was the guardian against the evil of the Wood.

From the Raven he learned there was no cure for Ludmila’s husband. Meanwhile, the Wood was growing stronger, and the Raven was growing too old to be guardian for much longer. The Raven asked Sarkan to stay, and initially, he refused. When the Raven was called out to heal the sick in a town called Porosna, Sarkan learned of the all-consuming nature of the Wood’s evil. Sarkan arrived in Porosna just in time to witness evil creatures from the Wood planting a seedling tree in Raven’s dead body. That tree spread and consumed the entire village. Afterwards, Sarkan moved into Raven’s old tower and became the new guardian against the menace of the Wood.

Sarkan spent the next 125-ish years as guardian against the Wood. Every 10 years he selected a 17 year old girl from the nearby villages to serve as tribute from the town in return for his protection. Each and every girl he chose had ‘roots’ that linked them magically to the Wood, and by studying the link, he hoped to discover and exploit a weakness in the Wood. After about 10 years the magical link between the girl and the Wood expired, and without any further use, Sarkan released her to live her own life in the world.

The last girl he ever took was Agnieszka, his apprentice-witch, and eventually, his lover. With their combined magic, they are able to defeat the heart of the Wood and purify it. By the time Sarkan chose to leave Agnieszka for the capital near the end of the book, all he had left to do was clear up any remaining hints of corruption lurking in the city… and to sort out his own complicated, passionate feelings for his apprentice.

Personality

On the surface, Sarkan is true to his menacing name: he is cold, mean, snarky, and recalcitrant. He is well-groomed and handsomely-dressed to an unapproachable degree. He treats peasants and common folk with disdain and constantly lives apart from society. The only company he chooses to suffer is the occasional conversation of a young girl from the villages, who he takes to his dark tower against her will to keep for 10 long years. People are tempted to think the worst of him -- rapist, dark sorcerer, the list goes on -- and it is difficult to blame them for their assumptions, as he never makes any effort to show he is better than the tall tales spun about him. The only good that the peasants know from him is that he will always come to rescue them from the evil corruption and beasts emanating from the Wood — but his awesome magic and brusque demeanor frighten them so much that they dare not interact or send for him more often than absolutely necessary.

Beneath his harsh exterior is a noble, dignified, even heroic man at heart. His past failures and mistakes scarred him deeply and enticed him to become the recluse he is today. His self-imposed isolation prevents him from fully grasping how poorly he is viewed by the masses. To make matters worse, he often makes a show of being an impenetrable, immovable wall, and rather than express weakness via disappointment, befuddlement, or shame, he lashes out with anger and verbal abuse. Although he may act like an insufferable prick, he is not a deliberately cruel or violent person, and most choices he makes as lone protector-wizard against the Wood are selfless and intended to protect and save as many of his people as possible. He is working for the people, not against them, though the line may seem very blurry when it comes to his public behavior.

Because he is so poorly socialized, he is an absolutely terrible communicator when it comes to his own feelings. It is beyond him to explain himself or his motivations. He also has the tendency to run and lock himself up in the far corners of the land when he becomes overwhelmed with his own emotions in hopes that the well will dry up with isolation and time.

Sarkan is also an intellectual and a scientist, and he will pursue knowledge for knowledge’s sake, even if it treads beyond the line into dark and dangerous sorcery. His favorite (and only) pastime is reading, and even books that end up discarded as frivolous or useless earn at least one close reading despite himself. He approaches the practice of magic with laboratory-precision and bookishness, and even his incantations and spell chants are always delivered with measured, carefully enunciated and perfect syllables. He has difficulty suffering incompetence or haphazardness, and he does not spare much patience or frustration for lackadaisical colleagues.

Strengths & Weaknesses

Strengths

Magic. The Dragon/Sarkan is canonically an incredible wizard, well-accepted to be the strongest in his kingdom. He is exceptionally well-read and a quick study, and there are very few areas of magic where he is lacking. I imagine he can probably cast quick translation cantrips to begin reading the trade language immediately, but it will be imperfect and he will find that it drains his stamina much quicker than at home. He can even hold his own with dark sorcery and necromancy, but these are a last resort to him, and it is likely he reads and knows about them more for the sake of knowing than for regular practice. He is also unlikely to be able to cast necromancy without a spell tome in front of his face. As far as potential nerfing, canonically, magic in Sarkan’s world can become incredibly draining, and if too many heavy spells are used in a short amount of time (like, say, constant high-powered spell casting in a 24 hour period or so), the magic-user will need up to a week of rest and recovery unless they have a vitality potion handy… and even then, potions do not restore one’s capacity back to full without rest. Teleportation or communication over vast swaths of distance is impossible except in the case of two closely-bonded magicians. Sarkan has a knack for sending out mist-like sentinel creatures as his eyes, and I’m not sure how these would work in Fade Rift, if it all. I was thinking they could work but over a much more limited distance (like, say, just the compound), or Sarkan is able to conjure one but not maintain it past his line of sight. This is a mod call!

Potion-brewing. Sarkan is incredibly adept at alchemic formulas and brewing up complex potions, but most of the advanced potions he creates take many extremely rare ingredients and upwards of years to create properly. I am going to translate this into a knack for learning about local herbs and brewing techniques and picking up on the locals’ potion and alchemic recipes as he makes the time to read and learn about it from local experts. I doubt he’ll be able to use any of the potions or recipes from his own world without access to canonical flora and fauna.

His superior intellect, though mostly a strength, will sometimes hold him back, particularly in cases that he feels will not yield worthwhile results. He has been burned in the past and tends to err on the side of caution. For example, if someone — even if they are a regent or a person of equal importance — is taken by corruption, he will need to be convinced and shown evidence that it is possible to rescue them before he would ever be on board with such an idea. He is not one to run a fool’s errand without a push by a reckless idiot forging ahead or a lot of convincing.

Weaknesses

He is not terribly good at improvisational magic or anything that must be ‘felt’ rather than studied. In his world, a typical wizard or witch uses spell books to study precise incantations, but there is the rare magic-user that can ‘feel’ out a spell organically. He is a relative newbie to this sort of spell-casting and can only really feel his way through a spell when he is with Agnieszka. She’s special like that.

The Dragon is pretty bad at making friends and playing nice with others. People tend to rely on him for his exceptional wizardry, but few call him a ‘friend.’ Let’s be real, this can be a tremendous weakness; he is rather rude and ungracious, and often expresses very little desire to participate in society. Forging alliances with other characters will become an interesting endeavor.

Sarkan is not the best communicator. He’s not very good at explaining himself even if it’s necessary, so many folks are inclined to think he is a worse person than he actually is. He gives a poor impression to say the least.

He has a rather volatile temper and nasty, snarky streak, and he does not suffer incompetence or haphazardness well.

He is horrifically unaware of the social cues he puts out due to his years of isolation.

Arrival Inventory

Sarkan's arrival inventory is the same as what he chose to pack up from his tower near the end of the book novel:

Sarkan's riding outfit, decked out in shakes of black, red, and silver. Even his spotless leather boots are dyed red and tooled in silver.

A padded case full of various empty vials and flasks of potions. Mods are welcome to nerf the potions into an ineffective gray mass if they wish. Otherwise, I would say there is one green potion that elicits rapid vegetation growth, one smoky potion vial that, when thrown in a victim's face, will turn a person into stone, and one restorative/vitality potion. There is also one flask of fire-heart potion in his case, but this is a highly dangerous and complex potion that will literally light anything ablaze with even a single tiny drop. If the whole flask is dropped, heaven forbid, it could burn down an entire city in seconds, and it is known as a weapon of war. I would 100% understand if this gets lost in transit, but if he does manage to keep it, it would remain under lock and key for all except the most desperate of circumstances.

A sack of spell/history/liesure books from his native land, mostly full of purgatives, curatives, and corruption-clearing incantations meant to help him in his quest of clearing the capital city of the Wood's corruption. Again, it is up to the mods whether the most complex of these spells will still be clear, or if these books will 'fall off the wagon' and he won't arrive with them.

'Human'ization

Sarkan is basically a real-world human plus magic. With that comes immortality, so at 150+ years old, he looks quite smashing for his age.

Fit

To me, Sarkan is a natural fit for Fade Rift. Magic? Check. Fighting demons? Check. Corruption? Check. Since he spent the last 150 years of his life fighting off a faceless, corrupting force, he has an intimate understanding of how awful and all-consuming Evil Corruption can be. I imagine that this will encourage him to really engage with the Inquisition's cause with full gusto, but on the side he will certainly make sure to research how to preserve and save as many lives as possible, and especially how he can control rifts and travel back to Polnya at will. I also think he will be unafraid to tread 'forbidden' ground (such as Blood Magic) if he's desperate enough for answers, and I imagine this could bring quite a few interesting plot points and CR possibilities to the table. I noticed on one of the mod pages for the game that Blood Magic practitioners are sought after, and I'd certainly be interested in offering up Sarkan as a way to get mixed up in potentially dangerous grounds.

I'm also interested in exploring how he eventually comes to terms with his (deeply personal) love for Agnieszka and how this can play into and change his motivations. He may be more inclined to shift his focus to finding a route back home, for example, if enough time and challenges elapse. But in the meantime he will be content to have a use for himself that locks him away from needing to face his feelings.

SAMPLES

Sample 1
Sample 2 (Adult content/themes since it’s at Garden of Eden)