[Application for Siren's Pull]
Player Information
Name: Lee
Age: 21+
AIM SN: Fractal Dawn
email: fractaldawn@gmail.com
Have you played in an LJ based game before? Yes
Currrently Played Characters: Lois Lane
Conditional: Activity Check Link: HERE
Character Information
General
Canon Source: Codex Alera
Canon Format: Book series
Character's Name: Tavi of Calderon, alternately (whitetext) [of Bernardholt, Isanaholt (only technically and never used); Tavi Patronus Gaius, and his most recent acquisition of Tavi ex Cursori; SPOILERS: Rufus Scipio, Tavar, Gaius Octavian, Gaius Tavarus (Magnus).[
Character's Age: 18
Conditional: If your character is 13 years of age or under, please clarify how they will be played.
What form will your character's NV take? Essentially an oversized pocket-watch like thing (looks something like this, and is basically steam-punk in that it is all gear-based and made of Magic. It is about six inches or so in diameter. Hidden under the front cover (which is where the Network will show up) will be a bright silver coin with a profile on it, with four available positions; each will determine what kind of transmission it is. The adjustment knob also has three positions (in, middle, out) which’ll determine sending, off, and reading, respectively. The front face has ways to scroll through network posts and people, with a little hand-switch from ‘network’ to the private IC-contact line. The back face is for easy-to-medium filtering, as well as another little hand-switch for encrypt/hide signal and decrypt/trace signal. The hard filtering is done by cracking the faces open and playing with the gears directly.
However, if anyone finds the watch and knows what the coin means about him, that is bad, so he’ll probably buy a magic-book-shaped NV for public use. Yes, that was a bunch of over-complication, but that’s basically in-character for him, too. The reason I don’t simply want to use the magic book is that canonically Tavi never has magic and has lots of issues with this, so his natural one being something more mechanical is apropos, and covering with ‘magic’ is as well.
Abilities
Character's Canon Abilities:
The mundane:
- Genius intellect
- As well educated as a Roman/medieval world can manage, especially mathematics, logic, law, magical theory, what engineering and science they have, and military strategy (for Roman/medieval versions of this).
- Trained to high skill with sword (primarily fencing, longsword), staff, daggers, and one style of martial art (unclear what form it might take). He is capable enough in all of these to fake weaknesses without being noticed. Familiarity with other forms of Roman/medieval weaponry.
- Skilled at reading people’s faces, tones of voice, intentions, etc, and frequently manipulating them
- Trained spy and assassin, highly expert: opening mail, forging, tailing without being seen, losing a tail, lock-picking, burglary, etc.; even more expert to being elite at intelligence analysis and strategizing
Furycrafting:
Alerans have what amounts to elemental spirit magic, called furycrafting. Tavi happens to be one of the most powerful crafters in Alera, but currently all of his abilities are dormant and locked for plot reasons (see History). A full list of crafting abilities can be found here; Tavi only unlocks them all by age 25 or so.
With relation to the restrictions on summoning: there are a few different kinds of furies. One set is the ambient motes of energy, obviously available in the Port; another is the concrete, manifest ones which are shaped-usually into an animal shape of some kind-by the thoughts of the crafter out of the local energy rather than summoned from outside. The third category are essentially summons, but are location specific: if there were some local Giant Elemental in the Port a strong crafter could harness it with a lot of energy and possible-to-probable death, but not one from outside it (this is, again, canonical mechanics of the magic).
Other powers:
Worthy of note are three non-crafting: he has an empathic bond to his girlfriend Kitai. Naturally, this is only relevant should she ever enter the Port, but it does bear highlighting just on the off-chance that happens.
He is also canonically able to outright block empathic probing, even from the strongest empaths, and showed signs of keeping a step ahead of a powerful telepath without giving his plans away entirely. He is usually unconsciously shielded from both empathic and telepathic casual passing scans, though a directed telepathic attempt will or deeper empathic scan might pick something up. Pushing too deep with either will give him a prickly feeling that tells him he’s being scanned. If he is consciously shielding, however, he can block just about any empathic scan, and put up slightly more resistance to a telepathic one. A very, very, very high powered empathic scan might work on him at this age; telepathic ones more or less will.
Finally, Tavi has a strong, rather preternatural intuition which grows as he ages. Already he can be insightful and make guesses about characters to a frightening degree. It is seldom out of the bounds of logical deduction with a dash of intuitive leap, but sometimes something flashes through him that is totally without basis but which he is certain of. Very rarely that instinct is just shy of prescience: he generally doesn’t get events, but a certainty that something major about to happen. This usually comes in the form of that unfounded certainty, and unattached to emotion: he describes it as knowing like he knows water is wet or two plus two is four. He has also been known to, on the brink of a huge Destiny Turn, just flash into a moment of crystal clarity relating to the incident somehow-only foresight if you look at it sideways. It is highly understated, but does kick in.
Conditional: If your character has no superhuman canon abilities, what dormant ability will you give them?
Weapons: He will arrive with a visible longsword and dagger, with a few other knives hidden (boot top, small of back, another place or two like that).
History/Personality/Plans/etc.
Character History: Two thousand years ago, a Roman Legion got lost between dimensions and landed on the deadly world Carna, filled with other species and races absolutely bent on eliminating each other. A single Legion and its civilian followers, the lost Romans and Germanic mercenaries totaled maybe eleven thousand. Nonetheless, they persevered, in time, developing furycrafting in six elements: wind, earth, water, fire, wood, and metal. A thousand years ago the Realm of Alera was established by Gaius Primus, the preeminent crafter of the time. Every Aleran crafts, with strength range from flicking on a furylamp to the High Lords, reputedly capable of stilling earthquakes, ending famines, igniting volcanoes, stemming river floods. To this day furycrafting guarantees their survival against the enemies still besetting them on all sides. However, when not fighting the other races, Alerans are usually fighting each other.
Alera’s current First Lord is Gaius Sextus (sixth of the last surviving branch of the family), now about eighty years old. Fifteen years ago, his only child Princeps Gaius Septimus died when the barbaric Marat tribes invaded Calderon Valley and slaughtered the Crown Legion and its camp. Tens of thousands of Alerans and Marat both died with them. Now civil war threatens as the High Lords prepare to make bids for the Crown.
Fifteen year old Tavi of Calderon grew up an apprentice shepherd on his family’s steadholt. An orphan, he was raised by his uncle Bernard, aunt Isana, and Fade. He knew only his mother’s name and nothing of his father, in all likelihood one of the legionares killed during the Battle of Calderon. Already small for his age, he had no parents, magic, connections, or advantages save a brilliant mind and the drive to use it to make a life despite his handicaps, preferably by studying at the Academy in the capital.
Once again the Marat threatened to invade, this time at the invitation of one of a traitorous High Lord. Thrown into events by chance, Tavi was captured by the Marat, but impressed the clan leader Doroga. To prevent fully half the horde from invading and to save himself from death, Tavi entered a challenge with Doroga’s daughter Kitai into a creepy wax forest filled with hive-mind killer insect-creatures called the Vord. However, quite by accident Tavi woke the hive queen sleeping in the Forest. When Kitai was mortally injured her saved her life without hesitation, at the cost of his victory. Somewhere between one heartbeat and the next, something changed. Kitai’s color-shifting eyes settled into Tavi’s. Despite her fury, she owed him her life and silently gave up her victory for him, saving his life in turn. Her father deduced the truth.
Rather than simply holding back his forces from the battle already raging in the Valley, Doroga honored the obligation he felt by his forces against those already attacking, effectively allying with the Alerans. Tavi’s diplomacy and integrity ended up forging the beginning of peaceful relations between the two nations for the first time in history.
During the battle, Tavi briefly carried the seal proving the High Lord was involved, and Fade the slave protected Tavi from a swordsman previously unbeaten by all save the Princeps’ bodyguard with shocking ease. They lost their proof, but Tavi’s performance was so outstanding that Gaius Sextus came to Calderon and personally offered Tavi patronage to the Academy, provided he prove himself a hard worker. Tavi agreed readily, departing for the capital with Fade in tow.
Two years later, Tavi was performing brilliantly in all his classes, and was page to the First Lord. On top of his duties and advanced course load he trained to be a spy. He made friends with the other three trainees, particularly the mousy Ehren and Antillar Maximus, the illegitimate son of a High Lord. The boys became staunchly, unquestionably loyal to Tavi, even as he got on the bad side of some of the highest nobility simply for class, crafting, and political differences.
Usually appearing weaker than his fellow spies-in-training, he was actually the most deadly. At Wintersend, the First Lord overstretched even his remarkable limits and worked himself into a coma. Tavi quickly found the head spy and the captain of the palace guard to run affairs in the meantime. To ensure Sextus’ absence wouldn’t be noticed, he called Fade in to stand bodyguard and Max to impersonate the First Lord for major functions.
Max (as Max) was soundly beaten defending Tavi from some young nobles. Tavi finally lost his temper, nearly killing the noble and his two friends. This landed Max in the highest security prison because no one believed the furyless boy had been responsible.
To break his friend out to keep impersonating the First Lord, Tavi tracked down a cat-burglar who had been operating without leaving a trace in the city for some months. He was shocked to find it was Kitai, who had come to the city to watch him. The Marat bonded to totem animals, and in the trial she had bonded to him. Together they broke into the prison and retrieved Max.
Meanwhile, the ambassador of a race of giant wolf-men informed Tavi that a traitor in his retinue, working with the hive-queen, planned to assassinate Gaius Sextus. Tavi pulled rank on Fade, forcing him to let out the not-quite-so-dead Araris Valerian to keep them all alive. Though they successfully protected Sextus, the chief spy died, leaving a message that one of the four spy trainees was a plant. Tavi correctly deduced it was the girl to whom he was less close.
What Tavi does not know is his ‘aunt’ Isana is actually his birth mother and legally married Princeps Gaius Septimus almost a year before his death. Prior to the battle, Septimus sent Isana to safety with Araris Valerian to guard her. Her sister Alia died of an arrow wound while helping Isana through Gaius Octavian’s birth. Knowing Septimus’ death was the result of a well-covered murder conspiracy, Araris and Isana took Tavi into hiding. Isana claimed Alia was Tavi’s mother and never spoke of his father; Araris became her slave. Isana also used her watercrafting in Tavi’s baths as a child, blocking his physical and furycrafting growth. Sextus recognized Araris upon seeing him again, and suspected Tavi was his grandson. Though he doesn’t realize it, Octavian is being groomed-assuming he survives long enough to take the throne.
Point in Canon: A year to a year and a half after Academ’s Fury, the second book out of six.
Conditional: Brief summary of previous RP history: None relevant to SP
Character Personality: The single word summary would be ‘complicated’; to describe Tavi in a dozen words would be brilliant, compassionate, courageous, charismatic, passionate, manipulative, calculating, cold-blooded, pragmatic, deadly, debatably sane.
Gifted with brilliance, Tavi was taught the basics of academics (reading and writing, basic arithmetic) as a child on his uncle’s holt, mostly by his aunt Isana. However, he spent as much time as he could reading-frequently history-daydreaming, and playing with numbers. As an apprentice shepherd as he approached adolescence, and a general helpful child farm-hand before then, that unique mind had little to exercise it. He was the kind of boy to read at night by the light of a furylamp hidden an extra under a cloth under his bed. He also would analyze and solve local logistical problems, merely as an exercise to keep himself occupied while watching sheep, and without realizing it taught himself far more mathematics and history than he was fully aware of. His history access was, however, limited to less-than-recent history, and his knowledge of the events of First Calderon was quite scarce.
Always under-sized and furyless, as well as being an orphan, all his life Tavi has felt like an outsider and usually treated as less than those around him. This only increased once he began attending school, and it pressed heavily on him. Frequently humiliated by those around him, he continues to struggle with feelings of inadequacy and insecurity, even now that he has proven several times that he doesn’t need crafting or connections to be both competent and crucially useful to his lord, Realm, and people. For all that he knows now that he is at least as dangerous as the greater portion of the population, he often feels as though he would be worth more and accomplish more if only he had the kind of crafting others did. Tavi finally began to learn now that the crafting is slightly less relevant than he thought, and has gained almost immeasurable confidence since arriving in the city, and even since the events of Wintersend last year.
Besides that growing confidence, Tavi also has intense drive and an unbreakable will. He devoted extra hours to training physically to keep up with his classmates and ended up exceeding them; he performed so diligently in classes that he was at the top of his class in advanced courses. Even when convinced that his lack of crafting is a handicap that will always leave him at a disadvantage anyone else can simply stomp on him for, he refuses to give up or actually believe he has no chance of winning. It may look like he doesn’t, but his strength (or possibly pig-headedness) means he never, ever gives up. That drive is the one which spurred him to succeed at the Academy and to protect his people and Realm with every inch of his soul, and sometimes drives him into foolhardy acts.
While lacking in bloodline or social connections prior to the events of Second Calderon, Tavi has a powerful natural charisma which lends itself to not only making friends, but impressing people with his integrity and goodness. During that battle it gained him the respect and friendship of an enemy race of Alera, effectively making him the original negotiator of an eventual alliance. This charisma also manifests in apparently peculiar ways, as he sometimes acts as though he were pulling rank when he has none to back it-but people listen to him anyway, from his close friends to teachers and servants of the First Lord himself. He has pulled rank on the captain of the palace guard, on the palace security, on the disguised bodyguard of the dead Princeps, even on political power in general when he declared Kitai to be the Marat Ambassador. Much to Tavi’s surprise, Gaius Sextus upheld that declaration-though for more reasons than simple political advantage.
One of the qualities besides his sheer intelligence which consistently impresses those he meets is his compassion. Tavi has strong opinions on equality and justice, and is almost unique to his world in holding the lives of both Alerans and her enemies to be of equal importance. He likewise has a passionate hatred of slavery and disparity in treatment of different socioeconomic classes or between genders, and will generally fight for that equality whenever possible.
As an orphan, Tavi’s extended family is incredibly precious to him. At about ten or eleven, a plague struck Calderon Valley. While Tavi himself was untouched, his uncle Bernard’s wife Cassia and their two daughters died. Even before then Tavi was like a son to Bernard; after that plague, the little family drew even closer. Including Fade, who adored Tavi and kept close watch on them, they meant everything to each other, and Tavi would walk through fire barefoot to protect them if he had to. His emotions run high: he has been known to use them deliberately to all but knock a strong empath unconscious from the storm. He is in general intensely passionate-but he keeps them under powerful control. When he loses that control, the results are usually even more terrifying.
Even when a child Tavi could hide his emotions from his aunt, a powerful empath, but since entering his training as a Cursor (Crown spy) he has become even more adept at controlling not only his emotions but his expression. His sheer brilliance has been tempered to a far more analytical and calculating mind, and from his natural practicality a cold-blooded pragmatism is slowly starting to surface. He has gone from being merely clever and full of cheeky ingenuity to being incredibly analytical and detachedly strategic at times. He can be brutally direct, and can step back from the emotional overload of a situation to examine it impassively. Not only that, but he is becoming more and more capable of using his knowledge of people and charisma to be highly manipulative. For all that he genuinely likes people and cares about general people and individuals deeply, at some level for anyone he meets he will subconsciously start thinking how he can use them-even his closest friends. His drive is being directed now with those qualities to protect Alera.
That drive is only helped by his courage-or possibly recklessness, one or the other. Tavi has been known to rush in without thinking, or to think twice, realize it’s insane, and jump in head-first anyway. Between that courage and a creativity outside of what most Alerans have, due to not having crafting to rely upon, it frequently seems as though Tavi is more than a little mad, and friend, family, and everyone else around him comments on this with some frequency.
For all that he is creative, Tavi has more or less no poetry in his soul. He’s far too hyperlogical for it, and while his adoration for history and literature is well informed, he has exactly no appreciation for the arts. Not only that, but for all his love of family and friends and the depth of his connection to Kitai, with whom he now shares a deep empathic bond, Tavi actually has very little skill with interpersional relationships and can and will destroy them unintentionally.
A core aspect of his personality, however, is his instinct and insight. Growing up on the harsh frontier he learned to pay attention to those instincts, though he doesn't realize yet that the occasional absolute certainty and leaps of intuition he makes are slightly more than they seem. He doesn't trust those instincts absolutely and will back them up with observation and logic, but he pays attention when analyzing information and sensory input. Nonetheless, that helps him analyze and manipulate people as he comes across them--and to help him plan his next moves.
Conditional: Personality development in previous game: None relevant to SP
Character Plans: At first, Tavi will be making tons of friends: he likes people, and reflexively gathers intelligence about people and their universes. Plus, the more people he knows and who like him, the more people he can use in a pinch. He’ll also be training his skills, learning about modern technology and engineering, catching up on modern mathematics and science, and start spending time lending a hand and exploring the city at any hour of the day just for fun.
Appearance/PB: "He was a beautiful child, in many ways, his features almost delicate. His hair curled around his head, dark, glossy ringlets. He had the long, thick lashes that so many men seemed to have and not care about, and his hands had long, slender fingers that seemed entirely oversized to the rest of him, promising considerable growth yet to come. His skin, where not marred with bruises or scratches, glowed with the ruddy clarity of youth that had somehow avoided awkward adolescence. She hadn’t seen what color his eyes were, in the hectic events of the previous evening, but his voice had been clarion-clear in the storm, bell-sharp." - Furies of Calderon
By this age, his voice is still a lighter baritone or low tenor, slowly settling out into one far deeper. The best guess on his height is that he is by this time approximately five foot nine or so. His eyes are a vibrant grass-green, and he has a raised scar on his left cheek.
For a PB I am currently using is Adamo Ruggiero, especially younger.
Writing Samples
First Person Sample
[There’s the sound of faint rustling in voice feed, with a few half-audible phrases about “bloody crows” and other mumblings, and then it settles out into video feed, to show a teenage boy, maybe about seventeen. His face has that adolescent look of being slightly unfinished, and he’s clearly heading from a pretty little boy to an angularly handsome man-but he just isn’t near either at the moment.
Pushing his long dark curls out of his face, he gives the feed a wry and lopsided smile.]
Hey, I’m Tavi. This place is- it’s amazing. I’ve never seen anything like it.
[ No kidding: from his face he looks Roman, and his clothing could be either Roman or mediaeval. A little dust-stained, red with blue trim, his tunic looks like it’s about to be a little too small for him within the next month or so. His voice is a clear, easy tenor, obviously not quite done deepening and settling out, and his intensely green eyes are bright, smiling, and curious. ]
I don’t even know where to begin, although if anyone knows where I could get a job, that’d be helpful. I’ve got a lot of practice delivering messages, with farm work, writing and sums, that sort of thing. Or if I could have some books on history-is there some place I could borrow some?
[ It’s strange, but unlike a lot of people, he seems almost thrilled to be here. There’s not a trace of his concern and his uncertainty at the dimension-hop, nor of the ache inside for some of the people at home. About half of it is real-he loves new challenges, new dangers, new places to explore; and his first and primary goal is learning as much as he can about this strange new world so he knows how to take out any threats to himself he has to.
The rest? Is very, very carefully hidden under the charming grin he flashes briefly. ]
Nice to meet you all.
Third Person Sample
Tavi had slipped that strange device he’d received on arrival into his pocket almost immediately. A rapid inspection had told him that it included his Cursor coin, and new city or not, he had no way of knowing yet if anyone knew what that coin represented. Most people in Alera Imperia assumed that Gaius Sextus’ most recent protégé was, of course, a Cursor of the Crown (they usually were). Here, it seemed likely they wouldn’t know what that even meant-
But he couldn’t take a chance, not when the Crown security or his own life might be at stake.
He had listened politely and without revealing how intensely, and every detail he catalogued and stored carefully in his memory for later examination. He had no idea how much of this was relevant, or how much was superfluous (much less utterly misleading), but he could never really know if he didn’t have it available to analyze. So he carefully played the part of the confused boy stranded in a new world. After all, it wasn’t entirely an act: he was stranded, and this world was incredibly strange. But helpless here? The thought was enough to make his lip twitch slightly, once he was alone. As if everyone having strange and possibly hugely destructive powers was odd or threatening. And monsters in the night?
Somehow Tavi seriously doubted that any of them would truly frighten him more than Taken Canim, or the sickly green glow and dark chitinous forms of the Vord. He would exercise due caution, of course-but fear? Not really.
Nonetheless, he kept his stance relaxed and his hands in easy reach of his various knives just in case while listening to the Greeters. This world might not have much to frighten him, not yet, but he’d just disappeared from his comfortable home in the Capital. (Well, Kitai’s comfortable suite.)
At last he was released, begging off due to tiredness, and once safely along in his temporary room (wasn’t that convenient?) he sat on the bed to start playing with the device. Apparently there was some kind of ‘Network’ here (and Tavi thought of the watersendings of Alera), and signs of strange materials and technology he had never seen. Even just in those first few minutes, out at that open field with the dirt, he’d seen strange markings which looked somewhat like the letters of both his and this town’s writing-but not used in any way he could make heads or tails of. A little research was in order.
First he’d arm himself with what knowledge he could find; then it would be time to have a look around.
Name: Lee
Age: 21+
AIM SN: Fractal Dawn
email: fractaldawn@gmail.com
Have you played in an LJ based game before? Yes
Currrently Played Characters: Lois Lane
Conditional: Activity Check Link: HERE
Character Information
General
Canon Source: Codex Alera
Canon Format: Book series
Character's Name: Tavi of Calderon, alternately (whitetext) [of Bernardholt, Isanaholt (only technically and never used); Tavi Patronus Gaius, and his most recent acquisition of Tavi ex Cursori; SPOILERS: Rufus Scipio, Tavar, Gaius Octavian, Gaius Tavarus (Magnus).[
Character's Age: 18
Conditional: If your character is 13 years of age or under, please clarify how they will be played.
What form will your character's NV take? Essentially an oversized pocket-watch like thing (looks something like this, and is basically steam-punk in that it is all gear-based and made of Magic. It is about six inches or so in diameter. Hidden under the front cover (which is where the Network will show up) will be a bright silver coin with a profile on it, with four available positions; each will determine what kind of transmission it is. The adjustment knob also has three positions (in, middle, out) which’ll determine sending, off, and reading, respectively. The front face has ways to scroll through network posts and people, with a little hand-switch from ‘network’ to the private IC-contact line. The back face is for easy-to-medium filtering, as well as another little hand-switch for encrypt/hide signal and decrypt/trace signal. The hard filtering is done by cracking the faces open and playing with the gears directly.
However, if anyone finds the watch and knows what the coin means about him, that is bad, so he’ll probably buy a magic-book-shaped NV for public use. Yes, that was a bunch of over-complication, but that’s basically in-character for him, too. The reason I don’t simply want to use the magic book is that canonically Tavi never has magic and has lots of issues with this, so his natural one being something more mechanical is apropos, and covering with ‘magic’ is as well.
Abilities
Character's Canon Abilities:
The mundane:
- Genius intellect
- As well educated as a Roman/medieval world can manage, especially mathematics, logic, law, magical theory, what engineering and science they have, and military strategy (for Roman/medieval versions of this).
- Trained to high skill with sword (primarily fencing, longsword), staff, daggers, and one style of martial art (unclear what form it might take). He is capable enough in all of these to fake weaknesses without being noticed. Familiarity with other forms of Roman/medieval weaponry.
- Skilled at reading people’s faces, tones of voice, intentions, etc, and frequently manipulating them
- Trained spy and assassin, highly expert: opening mail, forging, tailing without being seen, losing a tail, lock-picking, burglary, etc.; even more expert to being elite at intelligence analysis and strategizing
Furycrafting:
Alerans have what amounts to elemental spirit magic, called furycrafting. Tavi happens to be one of the most powerful crafters in Alera, but currently all of his abilities are dormant and locked for plot reasons (see History). A full list of crafting abilities can be found here; Tavi only unlocks them all by age 25 or so.
With relation to the restrictions on summoning: there are a few different kinds of furies. One set is the ambient motes of energy, obviously available in the Port; another is the concrete, manifest ones which are shaped-usually into an animal shape of some kind-by the thoughts of the crafter out of the local energy rather than summoned from outside. The third category are essentially summons, but are location specific: if there were some local Giant Elemental in the Port a strong crafter could harness it with a lot of energy and possible-to-probable death, but not one from outside it (this is, again, canonical mechanics of the magic).
Other powers:
Worthy of note are three non-crafting: he has an empathic bond to his girlfriend Kitai. Naturally, this is only relevant should she ever enter the Port, but it does bear highlighting just on the off-chance that happens.
He is also canonically able to outright block empathic probing, even from the strongest empaths, and showed signs of keeping a step ahead of a powerful telepath without giving his plans away entirely. He is usually unconsciously shielded from both empathic and telepathic casual passing scans, though a directed telepathic attempt will or deeper empathic scan might pick something up. Pushing too deep with either will give him a prickly feeling that tells him he’s being scanned. If he is consciously shielding, however, he can block just about any empathic scan, and put up slightly more resistance to a telepathic one. A very, very, very high powered empathic scan might work on him at this age; telepathic ones more or less will.
Finally, Tavi has a strong, rather preternatural intuition which grows as he ages. Already he can be insightful and make guesses about characters to a frightening degree. It is seldom out of the bounds of logical deduction with a dash of intuitive leap, but sometimes something flashes through him that is totally without basis but which he is certain of. Very rarely that instinct is just shy of prescience: he generally doesn’t get events, but a certainty that something major about to happen. This usually comes in the form of that unfounded certainty, and unattached to emotion: he describes it as knowing like he knows water is wet or two plus two is four. He has also been known to, on the brink of a huge Destiny Turn, just flash into a moment of crystal clarity relating to the incident somehow-only foresight if you look at it sideways. It is highly understated, but does kick in.
Conditional: If your character has no superhuman canon abilities, what dormant ability will you give them?
Weapons: He will arrive with a visible longsword and dagger, with a few other knives hidden (boot top, small of back, another place or two like that).
History/Personality/Plans/etc.
Character History: Two thousand years ago, a Roman Legion got lost between dimensions and landed on the deadly world Carna, filled with other species and races absolutely bent on eliminating each other. A single Legion and its civilian followers, the lost Romans and Germanic mercenaries totaled maybe eleven thousand. Nonetheless, they persevered, in time, developing furycrafting in six elements: wind, earth, water, fire, wood, and metal. A thousand years ago the Realm of Alera was established by Gaius Primus, the preeminent crafter of the time. Every Aleran crafts, with strength range from flicking on a furylamp to the High Lords, reputedly capable of stilling earthquakes, ending famines, igniting volcanoes, stemming river floods. To this day furycrafting guarantees their survival against the enemies still besetting them on all sides. However, when not fighting the other races, Alerans are usually fighting each other.
Alera’s current First Lord is Gaius Sextus (sixth of the last surviving branch of the family), now about eighty years old. Fifteen years ago, his only child Princeps Gaius Septimus died when the barbaric Marat tribes invaded Calderon Valley and slaughtered the Crown Legion and its camp. Tens of thousands of Alerans and Marat both died with them. Now civil war threatens as the High Lords prepare to make bids for the Crown.
Fifteen year old Tavi of Calderon grew up an apprentice shepherd on his family’s steadholt. An orphan, he was raised by his uncle Bernard, aunt Isana, and Fade. He knew only his mother’s name and nothing of his father, in all likelihood one of the legionares killed during the Battle of Calderon. Already small for his age, he had no parents, magic, connections, or advantages save a brilliant mind and the drive to use it to make a life despite his handicaps, preferably by studying at the Academy in the capital.
Once again the Marat threatened to invade, this time at the invitation of one of a traitorous High Lord. Thrown into events by chance, Tavi was captured by the Marat, but impressed the clan leader Doroga. To prevent fully half the horde from invading and to save himself from death, Tavi entered a challenge with Doroga’s daughter Kitai into a creepy wax forest filled with hive-mind killer insect-creatures called the Vord. However, quite by accident Tavi woke the hive queen sleeping in the Forest. When Kitai was mortally injured her saved her life without hesitation, at the cost of his victory. Somewhere between one heartbeat and the next, something changed. Kitai’s color-shifting eyes settled into Tavi’s. Despite her fury, she owed him her life and silently gave up her victory for him, saving his life in turn. Her father deduced the truth.
Rather than simply holding back his forces from the battle already raging in the Valley, Doroga honored the obligation he felt by his forces against those already attacking, effectively allying with the Alerans. Tavi’s diplomacy and integrity ended up forging the beginning of peaceful relations between the two nations for the first time in history.
During the battle, Tavi briefly carried the seal proving the High Lord was involved, and Fade the slave protected Tavi from a swordsman previously unbeaten by all save the Princeps’ bodyguard with shocking ease. They lost their proof, but Tavi’s performance was so outstanding that Gaius Sextus came to Calderon and personally offered Tavi patronage to the Academy, provided he prove himself a hard worker. Tavi agreed readily, departing for the capital with Fade in tow.
Two years later, Tavi was performing brilliantly in all his classes, and was page to the First Lord. On top of his duties and advanced course load he trained to be a spy. He made friends with the other three trainees, particularly the mousy Ehren and Antillar Maximus, the illegitimate son of a High Lord. The boys became staunchly, unquestionably loyal to Tavi, even as he got on the bad side of some of the highest nobility simply for class, crafting, and political differences.
Usually appearing weaker than his fellow spies-in-training, he was actually the most deadly. At Wintersend, the First Lord overstretched even his remarkable limits and worked himself into a coma. Tavi quickly found the head spy and the captain of the palace guard to run affairs in the meantime. To ensure Sextus’ absence wouldn’t be noticed, he called Fade in to stand bodyguard and Max to impersonate the First Lord for major functions.
Max (as Max) was soundly beaten defending Tavi from some young nobles. Tavi finally lost his temper, nearly killing the noble and his two friends. This landed Max in the highest security prison because no one believed the furyless boy had been responsible.
To break his friend out to keep impersonating the First Lord, Tavi tracked down a cat-burglar who had been operating without leaving a trace in the city for some months. He was shocked to find it was Kitai, who had come to the city to watch him. The Marat bonded to totem animals, and in the trial she had bonded to him. Together they broke into the prison and retrieved Max.
Meanwhile, the ambassador of a race of giant wolf-men informed Tavi that a traitor in his retinue, working with the hive-queen, planned to assassinate Gaius Sextus. Tavi pulled rank on Fade, forcing him to let out the not-quite-so-dead Araris Valerian to keep them all alive. Though they successfully protected Sextus, the chief spy died, leaving a message that one of the four spy trainees was a plant. Tavi correctly deduced it was the girl to whom he was less close.
What Tavi does not know is his ‘aunt’ Isana is actually his birth mother and legally married Princeps Gaius Septimus almost a year before his death. Prior to the battle, Septimus sent Isana to safety with Araris Valerian to guard her. Her sister Alia died of an arrow wound while helping Isana through Gaius Octavian’s birth. Knowing Septimus’ death was the result of a well-covered murder conspiracy, Araris and Isana took Tavi into hiding. Isana claimed Alia was Tavi’s mother and never spoke of his father; Araris became her slave. Isana also used her watercrafting in Tavi’s baths as a child, blocking his physical and furycrafting growth. Sextus recognized Araris upon seeing him again, and suspected Tavi was his grandson. Though he doesn’t realize it, Octavian is being groomed-assuming he survives long enough to take the throne.
Point in Canon: A year to a year and a half after Academ’s Fury, the second book out of six.
Conditional: Brief summary of previous RP history: None relevant to SP
Character Personality: The single word summary would be ‘complicated’; to describe Tavi in a dozen words would be brilliant, compassionate, courageous, charismatic, passionate, manipulative, calculating, cold-blooded, pragmatic, deadly, debatably sane.
Gifted with brilliance, Tavi was taught the basics of academics (reading and writing, basic arithmetic) as a child on his uncle’s holt, mostly by his aunt Isana. However, he spent as much time as he could reading-frequently history-daydreaming, and playing with numbers. As an apprentice shepherd as he approached adolescence, and a general helpful child farm-hand before then, that unique mind had little to exercise it. He was the kind of boy to read at night by the light of a furylamp hidden an extra under a cloth under his bed. He also would analyze and solve local logistical problems, merely as an exercise to keep himself occupied while watching sheep, and without realizing it taught himself far more mathematics and history than he was fully aware of. His history access was, however, limited to less-than-recent history, and his knowledge of the events of First Calderon was quite scarce.
Always under-sized and furyless, as well as being an orphan, all his life Tavi has felt like an outsider and usually treated as less than those around him. This only increased once he began attending school, and it pressed heavily on him. Frequently humiliated by those around him, he continues to struggle with feelings of inadequacy and insecurity, even now that he has proven several times that he doesn’t need crafting or connections to be both competent and crucially useful to his lord, Realm, and people. For all that he knows now that he is at least as dangerous as the greater portion of the population, he often feels as though he would be worth more and accomplish more if only he had the kind of crafting others did. Tavi finally began to learn now that the crafting is slightly less relevant than he thought, and has gained almost immeasurable confidence since arriving in the city, and even since the events of Wintersend last year.
Besides that growing confidence, Tavi also has intense drive and an unbreakable will. He devoted extra hours to training physically to keep up with his classmates and ended up exceeding them; he performed so diligently in classes that he was at the top of his class in advanced courses. Even when convinced that his lack of crafting is a handicap that will always leave him at a disadvantage anyone else can simply stomp on him for, he refuses to give up or actually believe he has no chance of winning. It may look like he doesn’t, but his strength (or possibly pig-headedness) means he never, ever gives up. That drive is the one which spurred him to succeed at the Academy and to protect his people and Realm with every inch of his soul, and sometimes drives him into foolhardy acts.
While lacking in bloodline or social connections prior to the events of Second Calderon, Tavi has a powerful natural charisma which lends itself to not only making friends, but impressing people with his integrity and goodness. During that battle it gained him the respect and friendship of an enemy race of Alera, effectively making him the original negotiator of an eventual alliance. This charisma also manifests in apparently peculiar ways, as he sometimes acts as though he were pulling rank when he has none to back it-but people listen to him anyway, from his close friends to teachers and servants of the First Lord himself. He has pulled rank on the captain of the palace guard, on the palace security, on the disguised bodyguard of the dead Princeps, even on political power in general when he declared Kitai to be the Marat Ambassador. Much to Tavi’s surprise, Gaius Sextus upheld that declaration-though for more reasons than simple political advantage.
One of the qualities besides his sheer intelligence which consistently impresses those he meets is his compassion. Tavi has strong opinions on equality and justice, and is almost unique to his world in holding the lives of both Alerans and her enemies to be of equal importance. He likewise has a passionate hatred of slavery and disparity in treatment of different socioeconomic classes or between genders, and will generally fight for that equality whenever possible.
As an orphan, Tavi’s extended family is incredibly precious to him. At about ten or eleven, a plague struck Calderon Valley. While Tavi himself was untouched, his uncle Bernard’s wife Cassia and their two daughters died. Even before then Tavi was like a son to Bernard; after that plague, the little family drew even closer. Including Fade, who adored Tavi and kept close watch on them, they meant everything to each other, and Tavi would walk through fire barefoot to protect them if he had to. His emotions run high: he has been known to use them deliberately to all but knock a strong empath unconscious from the storm. He is in general intensely passionate-but he keeps them under powerful control. When he loses that control, the results are usually even more terrifying.
Even when a child Tavi could hide his emotions from his aunt, a powerful empath, but since entering his training as a Cursor (Crown spy) he has become even more adept at controlling not only his emotions but his expression. His sheer brilliance has been tempered to a far more analytical and calculating mind, and from his natural practicality a cold-blooded pragmatism is slowly starting to surface. He has gone from being merely clever and full of cheeky ingenuity to being incredibly analytical and detachedly strategic at times. He can be brutally direct, and can step back from the emotional overload of a situation to examine it impassively. Not only that, but he is becoming more and more capable of using his knowledge of people and charisma to be highly manipulative. For all that he genuinely likes people and cares about general people and individuals deeply, at some level for anyone he meets he will subconsciously start thinking how he can use them-even his closest friends. His drive is being directed now with those qualities to protect Alera.
That drive is only helped by his courage-or possibly recklessness, one or the other. Tavi has been known to rush in without thinking, or to think twice, realize it’s insane, and jump in head-first anyway. Between that courage and a creativity outside of what most Alerans have, due to not having crafting to rely upon, it frequently seems as though Tavi is more than a little mad, and friend, family, and everyone else around him comments on this with some frequency.
For all that he is creative, Tavi has more or less no poetry in his soul. He’s far too hyperlogical for it, and while his adoration for history and literature is well informed, he has exactly no appreciation for the arts. Not only that, but for all his love of family and friends and the depth of his connection to Kitai, with whom he now shares a deep empathic bond, Tavi actually has very little skill with interpersional relationships and can and will destroy them unintentionally.
A core aspect of his personality, however, is his instinct and insight. Growing up on the harsh frontier he learned to pay attention to those instincts, though he doesn't realize yet that the occasional absolute certainty and leaps of intuition he makes are slightly more than they seem. He doesn't trust those instincts absolutely and will back them up with observation and logic, but he pays attention when analyzing information and sensory input. Nonetheless, that helps him analyze and manipulate people as he comes across them--and to help him plan his next moves.
Conditional: Personality development in previous game: None relevant to SP
Character Plans: At first, Tavi will be making tons of friends: he likes people, and reflexively gathers intelligence about people and their universes. Plus, the more people he knows and who like him, the more people he can use in a pinch. He’ll also be training his skills, learning about modern technology and engineering, catching up on modern mathematics and science, and start spending time lending a hand and exploring the city at any hour of the day just for fun.
Appearance/PB: "He was a beautiful child, in many ways, his features almost delicate. His hair curled around his head, dark, glossy ringlets. He had the long, thick lashes that so many men seemed to have and not care about, and his hands had long, slender fingers that seemed entirely oversized to the rest of him, promising considerable growth yet to come. His skin, where not marred with bruises or scratches, glowed with the ruddy clarity of youth that had somehow avoided awkward adolescence. She hadn’t seen what color his eyes were, in the hectic events of the previous evening, but his voice had been clarion-clear in the storm, bell-sharp." - Furies of Calderon
By this age, his voice is still a lighter baritone or low tenor, slowly settling out into one far deeper. The best guess on his height is that he is by this time approximately five foot nine or so. His eyes are a vibrant grass-green, and he has a raised scar on his left cheek.
For a PB I am currently using is Adamo Ruggiero, especially younger.
Writing Samples
First Person Sample
[There’s the sound of faint rustling in voice feed, with a few half-audible phrases about “bloody crows” and other mumblings, and then it settles out into video feed, to show a teenage boy, maybe about seventeen. His face has that adolescent look of being slightly unfinished, and he’s clearly heading from a pretty little boy to an angularly handsome man-but he just isn’t near either at the moment.
Pushing his long dark curls out of his face, he gives the feed a wry and lopsided smile.]
Hey, I’m Tavi. This place is- it’s amazing. I’ve never seen anything like it.
[ No kidding: from his face he looks Roman, and his clothing could be either Roman or mediaeval. A little dust-stained, red with blue trim, his tunic looks like it’s about to be a little too small for him within the next month or so. His voice is a clear, easy tenor, obviously not quite done deepening and settling out, and his intensely green eyes are bright, smiling, and curious. ]
I don’t even know where to begin, although if anyone knows where I could get a job, that’d be helpful. I’ve got a lot of practice delivering messages, with farm work, writing and sums, that sort of thing. Or if I could have some books on history-is there some place I could borrow some?
[ It’s strange, but unlike a lot of people, he seems almost thrilled to be here. There’s not a trace of his concern and his uncertainty at the dimension-hop, nor of the ache inside for some of the people at home. About half of it is real-he loves new challenges, new dangers, new places to explore; and his first and primary goal is learning as much as he can about this strange new world so he knows how to take out any threats to himself he has to.
The rest? Is very, very carefully hidden under the charming grin he flashes briefly. ]
Nice to meet you all.
Third Person Sample
Tavi had slipped that strange device he’d received on arrival into his pocket almost immediately. A rapid inspection had told him that it included his Cursor coin, and new city or not, he had no way of knowing yet if anyone knew what that coin represented. Most people in Alera Imperia assumed that Gaius Sextus’ most recent protégé was, of course, a Cursor of the Crown (they usually were). Here, it seemed likely they wouldn’t know what that even meant-
But he couldn’t take a chance, not when the Crown security or his own life might be at stake.
He had listened politely and without revealing how intensely, and every detail he catalogued and stored carefully in his memory for later examination. He had no idea how much of this was relevant, or how much was superfluous (much less utterly misleading), but he could never really know if he didn’t have it available to analyze. So he carefully played the part of the confused boy stranded in a new world. After all, it wasn’t entirely an act: he was stranded, and this world was incredibly strange. But helpless here? The thought was enough to make his lip twitch slightly, once he was alone. As if everyone having strange and possibly hugely destructive powers was odd or threatening. And monsters in the night?
Somehow Tavi seriously doubted that any of them would truly frighten him more than Taken Canim, or the sickly green glow and dark chitinous forms of the Vord. He would exercise due caution, of course-but fear? Not really.
Nonetheless, he kept his stance relaxed and his hands in easy reach of his various knives just in case while listening to the Greeters. This world might not have much to frighten him, not yet, but he’d just disappeared from his comfortable home in the Capital. (Well, Kitai’s comfortable suite.)
At last he was released, begging off due to tiredness, and once safely along in his temporary room (wasn’t that convenient?) he sat on the bed to start playing with the device. Apparently there was some kind of ‘Network’ here (and Tavi thought of the watersendings of Alera), and signs of strange materials and technology he had never seen. Even just in those first few minutes, out at that open field with the dirt, he’d seen strange markings which looked somewhat like the letters of both his and this town’s writing-but not used in any way he could make heads or tails of. A little research was in order.
First he’d arm himself with what knowledge he could find; then it would be time to have a look around.