Artua - Tuv

Name: Artua

Class: Soul Fighter

Appearance:

Standing about 5'7" Artua has bleach-blonde hair, and hazy light-blue eyes. His face is stern and weathered, and looking at him you get a feeling of him having "seen it all". There are no noticeable markings on his body, save for a large tattoo of a white and gold shield taking up the majority of his back, and a large burn up his right fore-arm. He wears a crude, but soft leather breastplate fastened tightly with leather straps and copper buckles, as well as leather greaves boots and shoulderpads, attached in a similar fashion. Around his waist, there are many different pouches containing various herbs, and alchemical devices for creating healing salves on the fly, or studying plants, as well as a carefully maintained tome strapped to his left hip.

Personality:

Naturally stoic and inquisitive, Artua seeks knowledge of all around him, regardless of how long it will take him to get it. He also endeavours to learn from all sides of a particular subject to get a better picture of the actual situation (such as spending time in a town constantly ravaged by raiders, then spending time in the raider's camp). After he has what he sees as a complete view, then he will pick a side based off his own mysterious morals.

Fighting Style:

Artua makes pacts or deals with beings of great power. (Gods, Demons, Forces of Nature, it doesnt matter, being neutral he will take aid from anyone, or anything.) These pacts usually involve a forfeit or sacrifice on the part of the pact-maker, the exact details of the forfeit are discussed at great length, (deals may take days, weeks, or months to complete, where as gaining enough favor to even initiate talks with a party of power, could take years or decades.) and if the agreement is sufficient for both parties, a boon of energy is bestowed upon the pact-maker.

Although generically called Force, the energy bestowed by and one entity, can differ greatly from other energies bestowed by other entities, (An elemental of Fire, may boon energy comprised of pure fire, where as a Mage Diety might provide pure raw mana.) Once Artua successfully pacts, he takes the Force that he gains, and inter-twines it with his own life energy allowing him to manifest it in a semi-transparent, solid physical form. The inter-woven Force and Life can be de-constructed and rebuilt in almost any form, provided that in solid form, the energies take up no more space than the sum of his Force and his Life-Energy.

The "blade" if it can be called that, that Artua formed from this amalgam of primal energies is called Psy, and can extend as far as desired, as long as the blade stays in contact with his body. It can also form a shield or body-armor, or any other combination of objects. If for any reason part of the "blade" is disconnected from his body, whether broken, cut off, or chipped away, it immediately fades away, dissapating both the energy that gave the weapon it's power, AND the Life-Force that held the energy together.

Psy is so much a part of Artua, that even if he pours all of his life-force into manipulating energy for Psy, he will not die, as long as it stays connected to him. Psy never has a set density, as more energy and life can be packed into an area, at the expense of size, conversely, he could extend the area of the "blade", making it cover a much larger area, but it would be considerably less effective.

Artua's life-force is very limited, when it is full, he is perfectly healthy, and as he nears death, so too does his life-force wane. As such, he cannot indefinately manipulate ALL of the energy within his body at once, only as much as his life-force can "hold on to", but for short periods of time he can allow "bursts" of energy to course through Psy, if left in for too long, these energies quickly destroy Artua's life-force, but if released promptly cause no harm to Artua, and allow for much more adaptable use of his abilities.

Natural Skills:

{Alchemy}

Although his extended life essentially protects him from death by old age, his body is just as frail as a normal human's and takes the normal wear and tear that a human's body would over the same course of time. As such he has developed a particular skill in herbs and alchemy to heal and repair himself.

{Strategy/Foresight/Investigation}

Because he lives so long, he tends to take things slowly, think his actions over, and can discern fairly obscure things through very overly-convoluded logic and near photographic memory. (Like making a guess give or take one or two, on the population of a castle, that had been destroyed years before, assuming he doesn't already know from overhearing it somewhere). This is also fairly useful for things such as tracking others, or anticipating movements.

Pacts:

As making pacts with higher beings is the only way for Artua to gain energy, he endeavours to do so at every possible chance. Most Good Dieties, ask for sacrifices of time, things like daily prayer, or tithes. Most Evil Dieties require sacrifices of mind or body, a Demon of Torture, might demand you to torture a helpless beggar, or may wrack you with excruciating pain for a length of time in exchange for his boon, while other demons may ask to possess you for a period of time, to get a taste of freedom, or to wreak havok on the world.

Current Pacts:

Åristol Òrun: A Diety of Time that has provided the majority of Artua's energy up to this point, and slows his aging. (more details in Background)

The Fire-Lord of the Under-Mine: A fire-elemental of great power, whose pact with Artua involves the draining of a portion of his Life-Energy and an intense heat on his right fore-arm at high-noon each day (The area of the scar on his fore-arm, that was given on the finalizing of the pact.). This pact allows Artua to imbue his stored energy with the power of searing flames.

Background:

Born in a place called Verdite (cookie for whoever knows which game I ripped that from), a small village humans dedicated to making deals with beings of greater power, in exchange for boons of energy that they control with their own life-force. Due to the nature of their craft, the people have a long-standing agreement with a diety of time, to slow the aging process dramatically, they can live for many millennia, with the stipulation that when they DO die, they take a place with the diety of time, and help maintain the fabric of time for all eternity.

Artua's people, having such extended lifetimes, long names become cumbersom and annoying so most are named after what knowledge they want to pursue most (Artua means truth). They devote much time to the pursuit of knowledge and understanding, although seldom do they ever release information to the majority of the world. (most of the big things would prolly fry your brain anyways) But will occasionally provide useful insight if they feel a true need exists.

Artua is fairly young, although his true age is known by none but him. Early in his life, not long after the ritual of adulthood (the tattoo on his back) a plague swept the land and infected his entire village. All died horrible painful deaths, except Artua, The time diety that had pacted with Artua's entire village saw that the power and knowledge they had gained would die off in it's entirety without anyone to pass it on to a new generation, and so intervened to save Artua's life. Artua now spends his days furthering his research of the world, in the hopes of passing his knowledge on to a gifted youth, and further extending his clan.