unfinished library app;

[noonlight]

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General Info

Player Name: takhys
Player Contact(s): bootknife on plurk or discord.
Are you over 18? yes.
Do you have any other characters in game?: No.
Who invited you?: If during an open period, put NA.

Character Name: Illumination, of the line of Yufin-Yufafin, one of Qin's Get.
Canon: OC,
Canon Point:
Age: 37

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History

Illumination is from the Great Rift City, Yesh me-Ayin (YmA), a 1920s-ish urban fantasy citystate etched into the sides of a vast canyon set in the heart of a hostile landscape. No one has any real knowledge of how old the city is and if someone tries to sell an artifact from the First City, it's a con job. At the heart of the most powerful nation, YmA is the largest city on the continent. There's a general consensus that it's been a hub for trading, commerce, and study since the fall of the last major age.

Set into a valley, with both vertical and horizontal space to spread out, Rift City is a literally stratified society. As a general rule, the rich live higher up on the walls, with the poor going lower and lower until you're in the Dregs and quite literally subterranean. Broad streets and open plazas are a benefit enjoyed by those on upper levels, with narrow, twisting and jack-knifing tracks the norm.

Like others of their kind, Lu was raised in a communal, clan setting, and among their cohort they were friendly, pleasant enough, and studious. They were closest with another young man named Cherish and saw him as something like an older brother. They idolized him, wanted to be like him, and that only changed when they saw how much he gave up to his patron in order to be a sorcerer. They opted to be a wizard, preferring to gather their magic through hard work rather than uneven deals with spirits. Over time, they grew apart and occasionally found themselves on opposite sides of arguments and conflicts. They love him, dearly, and while they disagree, they would still do pretty much anything for him.

Within the City itself, they are involved with a Benevolent Society (sort of a cross between a Tong and a Triad), but their day job is to work for the Aztmus Agency. In this position, they are regularly sent on missions/jobs that require tact, good manners, and the ability to drink a lot of wine and make polite small talk. (They go to a lot of political parties, listen carefully, and gently gather up plenty of social capital, blackmail material, and useful information.) It's not the best job, but it's one that pays their bills (good!) and gives them regular access to the Agency's workshops and labs (better!).

In the lab, they have a long-time playful rival (and hate-sex friend) named Sebastian. They regularly compete, yell, and once or twice lightly poisoned each other, but will still go for drinks together. Sebastian is high strung, very exacting in what he wants, and has opposing opinions about certain very dull wizarding/academic arguments. That said, they will gladly gang up on anyone that dares upset one or the other.

During a Strahd-ish campaign, they were regularly exposed to and dealt with a great many people who'd been experimented on in the vein of Frankenstein/Island of Dr Moreau. It bothered them a great deal that these people, these monsters, were not offered comfort. Sure, they might be terrifying, they might have inhuman or unwholesome needs, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be cared for. It was after this that they ended up settling on the Song of Hell as a personal guiding philosophy - they're not always perfect with it, but they make an effort to try and love everything and everyone.

Is this character an AU? Nope.

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Personality

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FORMATIVE EXPERIENCES:

Leaving the Get and heading off to a less than reputable wizard college: Others of the Get tend to live 'low on the wall' or in the less reputable areas of the Rift City. In part, it's because they're not always welcomed or trusted, but also because they keep themselves to themselves. They have a non-human social structure which tends to upset or unnerve the more mammalian races. Anyway, Lu grew into a specialist that could leave the hive, and started to learn to mimic humans and discovered an aptitude for acquiring magic through study.

Joining a 'Benevolent Society': That's a euphemism, alright. Through connections with another of the Get, Lu was brought into group that functions both as a source of mutual aid (public facing) and runs the criminal activity in a certain chunk of the City (...less public facing, but not that hard to figure out).

Working with White Hats: As a favour to the head of the Society, Lu was loaned out to the Aztmus, an agency that organized and funded D&D parties for various tasks. They were matched with a group of noble, white-hat heroes and adventurers. As a set, they got up to a lot of the usual D&D adventures, and Lu was granted possession of the group's sole brain cell. While they might not necessarily like them, they did feel that they were terrible useful to have around. Their co-adventurers rightly believed that they could always be trusted to speak the truth (or a version of it). Although, it's possible that one day, they're either going to be a problem or support someone/something evil because it aligned with their interests.

Your Moral Compass is Broken: Following a series of events, one of the party was having a crisis of conscious about having chosen to take the easier route, which involved lying and setting someone else up to take a nasty political fall. This threatened to destabilize a good deal of other work they'd been doing, and so they comforted them. It was their view that it was fine that they ruined someone's life. What's a little bit of banishment? The party member didn't need to be forgiven, because it wasn't necessary. They were just acting in the way that was true to their own nature.

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PHILOSOPHY

Illumination's primary personal philosophy is that they follows the Song of Hell. This is a code off universal love and compassion, even for things which are wicked, cruel and evil. (Sometimes especially for things that are evil because they have no one else to love them.)

Sounds great, but how does this actually work? They're not a tempter. Illumination isn't about to try and lure people into doing nasty or cruel things, but they will promise that it really is just fine to follow their nature. If it's their nature to hurt others? So be it. They won't forgive them, because they don't need forgiveness.

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DESIRES

A moderate level of creature comforts: good wine, good shoes, a room free from vermin, and the overthrow of a corrupt oligarchical government. You know, the usual. Lu will admit that they're not sure what ought to replace the Dux and his cronies, but even something as flawed as a democracy has to be better than Robber Barons, right? (...right?!)

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FEARS

Lu feels that most of their fears are perfectly reasonable: the Dux of YmA, the Watchmen that support the Dux, the general uncaring nature of society, and the looming spectre of things beyond their control. Prison? Unpleasant, but they would survive.

The collapse of their hive is one of the few things that both frightens them and that they can't plan for, around, or otherwise come up with a way to mitigate it.

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Powers and Abilities

Illumination is from a heavily modified 5e style tabletop campaign, so if you want an actual character sheet with stats, lemme know. Nothing they do or can do gets close to setting breaking and ICly they're not interested in trying for breaking the world.

Racial Stuff:
Darkvision: Lu can see in the dark, but it does make their eyes get a bit glowy and creepy.
Hellish Resistance: resistance to fire damage

(Homebrew) Wizard in the School of Transmutation:
While Illumination has access to the basic sort of wizardy magic you'd get as a level 10 wizard, they've chosen to focus their efforts on learning to modify energy and matter. This is a spell class that is generally crap at battle, but great for roleplay and puzzle solving.

Spell highlights:
- a personal polymorph a day: meaning that once a day, they can shift into an animal.
- find familiar: a spirit takes the form of a creature and hangs about, being useful, and/or snippy.
- cure wounds: good with poisons, general healing, patching someone up.
- detect magic, detect passable white wine
- a bunch of options with their transmuter's stone. Neat to have access to some of these, but generally I only play with the ones where they can alter their own body, because body mods/body horror is fun. Let's get weird with it.

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Inventory

- whatever they're wearing
- wizarding staff
- purse and contents: pencil, pen knife, cough drops, cigarettes, matches and lighter, house key, etc.

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Writing

Sample: TDM

When presented with a choice, is the character more likely to stick with tried and true methods? Or make something new up on the fly? First of all, they'd try the traditional methods to see if they work. If it works, great! Problem solved, but if not? Research and then application.

What is more important to your character, preserving the past or forging a future? Lu is interested in preserving the knowledge of the past, but is committed to making the future a better place than the present.

Are you alright with your character’s canon being used as a Recommended Reading?: By all means! They're an OC, but go for it.