[OOC] Fade Rift Application

[coiledscales]

PLAYER

Name: Stefan
Age: 29
Contact: PM or plurk (dragoon1940)
Other Characters: N/A
Interests: I’m hoping to dig into political intrigue and character interactions. Alacruun can be an actiony sort of character, but he’s much happier with research, manipulation, and generally schmoozing his way through life - so I’m going to try and focus on that.

CHARACTER

Name: Alacruun
Canon/OC: OC
Canon Point: After his (temporary) embodiment and a number of his travels with Adalia.
Journal: coiledscales
Age: Several thousand years.

Canon World

Faerun is a vaguely medieval fantasy realm, filled with the typical assortment of fantasy creatures and races. Dwarves, elves, dragons, dragon-born (creatures descended from dragons, but nearly as powerful or impressive), goblins, orcs - the usual. There’s magic and adventurers and ancient, magical kingdoms. It’s a bit like the Dragon Age setting in many regards. Magic can be learned either through study or essentially inherited via some form of magical bloodline. It’s varied and powerful in many regards and could potentially be used to make one a supremely powerful being. Unlike the Dragon Age setting, the various gods and pantheons of Faerun are very real and offer their favor and intervention to their followers. There also isn’t a weird dreamworld full of demons. Demons actually come from another plane and are pretty terrible, all around.

History  

• A long time ago, Alacruun was one of many black dragon hatchlings in a very large clutch of eggs. He was one of the weakest and spent a large part of his young life being picked on by his siblings. This engendered a certain amount of resentment.
   
• Once he was old enough to strike out on his own, Alacruun took to the road with his own power behind him and all the natural talents of a black dragon. Rather than focus on treasure and wealth, Alacruun had a different idea in mind. He wanted to know things. He wanted to learn. 
   
• After time spent poking around the edges of humanoid civilization, Alacruun used his power of shape-changing to assume the form of a young student and began delving into the libraries of human society, digging his way through scrolls and musty books, looking for as much information on the world - and magic - as he could. He discovered the school of necromancy and began to study in earnest, desiring to extend his own lifespan to better collect and hoard knowledge.

• At this time he took a break from his studies to pursue a mate - another dragon named Kalazari. Together they had children, who would later go on to have their own descendents.
   
• Alacruun’s ambition tore him away from Kalazari and his erstwhile family and he returned to his tomes and practice of magic, becoming more and more powerful in wizardry. Over the years, his curiosity and desire to learn twisted, influenced by his own draconic greed and ambition into a desire to control the world around him. A dragon, no matter how powerful, couldn’t run the world. To do that, he would need to be a god.

• Through an ancient, powerful ritual and with the assistance of mortal followers, Alacruun attempted to ascend himself to godhood. A band of adventurers, assisted by good dieties, interfered. Alacruun gained great power, but was forced into an extraplanar prison, where he would be unable to interact with the world, except distantly.

• Alacruun spent an eon in that prison, working through his followers and their descendents, striving to find a way to free himself from his imprisonment and return to regain his "throne".
   
• Another band of adventurers got mixed up in this and his attention was drawn by one, a half-elf named Adalia. She sold first her future and then her soul to him in exchange for her friends lives. His interest in her grew and he turned from thinking of her as a mere tool to something more personal. 

• Despite her continued attempts to foil his plans, Alacruun was able to embody himself in a humanoid body. During this time he insinuated himself into Adalia’s party, the both of them keeping his presence quiet for a variety of reasons. During their travels Alacruun confessed that his interest had turned from something dispassionate to one entirely obsessed with her. Love, of a sort.

 

Personality

Alacruun is, at his core, someone who believes very strongly in order and in the ability of people to alter the world around them. Additionally, Alacruun has a very high opinion of himself and his own thoughts and abilities. Most of the time this verges on or becomes actual arrogance and vanity. His point of view and his own well-being are the most important things in the world to him and he suffers from a lack of serious introspection or self-reflection. This leads to an inability to seriously consider things from someone else's point of view. 

 

Despite this lack of empathy, he is skilled at reading people. Combined with a natural charm and his self-confidence, he exudes a sense of charisma. He uses this charisma to manipulate others for his own gain. Since his opinion and ideas are all that matter, he sees no problem with lying or tricking people into doing things for him. He will also happily intimidate or threaten if his natural charm isn't working.

 

This lack of empathy also exhibits itself as an indifference toward the suffering of others. Misfortune is unimportant, as long as it's happening to other people. Pain, death, and injury are simply the prices others pay for getting in his way or being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He doesn't enjoy hurting people (he isn't a sadist) but he also doesn't see it as wrong if it gets him what he wants.

 

His inclination towards order exhibits itself as a need to be in control. He prefers to plan ahead and have an idea of what he's going to be doing before leaping into action. He can improvise if the situation calls for it, but he does not enjoy it. He often believes that he has everything under control, resulting in Alacruun being blindsided when an unexpected variable throws his plans out of order. His desire for control also appears in his drive to ensure the world is ordered: he pushes his own wishes onto his surroundings, regardless of others' opinions.

 

Greed is another of his defining traits. He desires to "own" the things that he feels most invested in, even if they're not relevant in the grand scheme of things. He'll sacrifice lives and treasure if he sees said items or people as disposable, but once he begins thinking of something (or someone) as belonging to him, it will take a great deal of persuasion or extreme duress to force him to discard it. Once dedicated to someone, he'll remain loyal. He'll also be poking his nose into their business and doing what he thinks is best for them, whether or not they want it.

 

He is naturally intelligent and inquisitive and this often leads him to meddle or investigate where prudence might dictate otherwise. If he wants to poke his nose into something, he will, regardless of the consequences. He only regrets it when it ends up having a tangible affect on him - not before.

Strengths & Weaknesses

Black Dragon

In his natural form, Alacruun is a very old black dragon, with all of the strength that comes with it. He can fly, can spit a stream of extremely caustic acid, is extremely resistant to all sorts of damage and magic, and is generally Very Hard to Kill. He's also the size of a small house. This does make life hard when he needs to get somewhere in confined spaces. In addition, he can:

• See clearly in the dark or low-light conditions for up to 60 feet
• Breathe underwater
• Immune to magic sleep or paralysis effects
• Shapeshift into a humanoid shape

Wizard

Aside from being a dragon, Alacruun has spent a great deal of his time alive studying magic and learning how to manipulate arcane power for his own benefit. He has a repertoire of spells, but many of them focus on aspects of death (i.e. Necromancy). This includes inflicting disease and curses on people, draining life-force away from people, the ability to create undead, and the ability to inflict general pain and suffering on others. He also has a smattering of other useful spells, including Polymorph, Invisibility, and some other elemental damage.

Dragon-God

One of Alacruun's main ambitions was to become a god. He has half-succeeded, but was locked away and trapped in an extra-planar prison, leaving him with only a fragment of power. He's maintained a cult over the years of his imprisonment and he's able to scry on the outer world, as well as communicate with other people via divination and magic items. Given the right situations, he can also imbue others with his power via marking them and giving them his favor, especially in the areas of death and knowledge (his divine domains, as weak as they might be in his current, imprisoned state).  

Suggested Nerfs

No Longer a Dragon (Or a God)

Alacruun has, obviously, been forced into a humanoid body after his journey through the Fade. He thus no longer benefits from the innate magic or damage resistance of his draconic body, nor can he breathe acid or otherwise tap into any of that power (such as his ability to shape-shift). Likewise, the source of his divine power is also locked beyond the Fade in his home realm; whether this is because he's been drawn into an entirely new universe/plane of existence or a combination of his extraplanar prison with the distance and the Fade is unknown; regardless, he cannot scry, mark, or otherwise tap into that power or imbue others with that power. It's simply locked away from him.

He can, however, still see clearly in darkness or low-light conditions up to a distance of sixty feet.

Wizardry

His ability to tap into his magic, however, is very much present and he is still able to sling spells with the best of them. His primary focus has always been necromancy - so he'll likely find tapping to the sort of powers that the Necromancer specialization can bring to bear easier than not. His ability to create zombies, ghouls, animated skeletons, etc, is likely to be more limited and not a permanent; such constructs only last for a few minutes, similar to the Fade spirits and shades that native necromancers can utilize (only much, much more physical). 

However, tapping into that power is also likely to be more exhausting than using powers that are more similar to "native" powers and will drain him very quickly, making his ability to animate them or otherwise use his powers much more difficult.

Arrival Inventory

A set of clothes and a few days worth of rations, plus a walking staff and a small belt knife.

'Human'ization

While obviously a dragon at home, he has traveled extensively in human guise before and, in this case, he will be "humanized" as an qunari - a bit more slender than usual, but identifiably a qunari. Dark hair, deep green eyes. Otherwise fairly normal in most regards.

Fit

I think it would be interesting to take a character who is very powerful and very relevant to his own world's story (or at least a part of it) and put him into a world that is similar in many ways, but also different. And at the same time, he'll be relegated to a different role. Suddenly, he's no longer center stage. He has to figure out how to work well with others again and acknowledge that he can't simply brute force his way through all of his problems. At the same time, his own particular methods may make him an interesting antagonist or foil for more "good" aligned characters in the game. While he is unlikely to decide siding with Corypheus is a good idea, he's also likely to be much more underhanded and power-hungry - enough that there will be a rift and a question about "methods". He'll have his own ideas about what is or isn't an appropriate use of magic. I'm also hoping to be able to dig into the difference between dragons in his own world and dragons in Thedas, especially since he is one (or is when he's not forced into a humanoid body, anyway).

SAMPLES

Sample One

Sample Two