Darkarma
Loyal Servant of Altera
Archmage Darkarma Talon
Age: Undetermined
Height: 4’10
Weight: 5.7 Stone
Appearance:
At first glance the great Darkarma Talon looks like nothing more than some rich elven noble’s spoiled brat. To match his child like appearance is in general a fairly small stature of that of a 10 to 12 year old human child. Despite these two points, that often will leave many a common person shirking any thought that he could be more, he offers three striking features that counter his childlike form. The first of the trio of feature are a set predatory feline pupils framed by eyes of violet crystal pigmentation. For the second notable feature is a patchwork of alternating crimson-maroon and metallic gold hair.
Finally the third of three, Darkarma has placed upon his forehead a single pitch black colored star. As such star acts seemingly as a focal point for his entire existence, often leading those who see him too almost always become drawn its five pointed design before anything else. To this point it seems innately supernatural and at the same time as an anti-existence. It somehow suppresses some part of him and as an unintended consequence anyone who looks upon it in some way. Luckily it’s usually hidden by a crown made of solid obsidian with a single eye like emerald gem at the forefront.
In standard elf fashion Darkarma has the highly stereotypical long pointy ears well worthy of his ancestral heritage and in an addition bearing the dark golden skin tones that the rest of his body benefits from. Said ears also are marked with two rather expensive looking emerald gemstones.
Often Darkarma is clothed in a rather comfortable and rich looking iridescent verdant cloak made of a heavy silk like material. On the back it contains sigil of power but the root of its power or the source of its design is unknown all save for the owner of the cloak. Similar such sigils can be seen in small engravings on his walking staff. All of which have a slightly eerie glow, no one has really bothered to tell him that such displays are considered cliché in this day and age.
That aside the elf wears a dark violet robe, an occasional a flower on his chest, gold bangles and fingerless gloves to finish off the ensemble.
Personality:
He is a survivor no matter what he would say to the contrary. Surviving something is one thing, keeping the mind set to survive anything is another. At his core nature being reliant on others is a hard thing to accept, he’ll go out of his way by miles if need be if it means gaining knowledge or resources first hand. At the same time Darkarma will act as his appearance suggests even though his eyes speak volumes about the wisdom of decades, if not centuries of endured hardship. His closest companion is magic, he sees it as an answer to all things as he has delved deeper than many, which perhaps is the primary source in his belief that he is his own island.
Despite all of this though he is relatively easy to humor though somewhat awkward in social situations, to the point where his worst nightmare relates to being stuck in a confined space while being forced to endure a pregnant or awkward pause in a conversation. He is however quite willing to talk and share knowledge about magic though few ever quite understand his explanations, many of which involve terminology he invented himself or metaphors that only worked in the world he had fled.
One thing is for sure, he is easily entertained and perhaps the true child of his body shows through the most in this one fact.
Backstory:
I walk this path alone marked by last will of a god I never knew as anything but a celestial corpse.
What does one expect when one meets their long dead and yet unforgotten god?
Mine marked me with all his power and the sealed it away.
How does one respond to a gift given and taken?
I damned him to oblivion.
I am Darkarma Talon and I am from a world called Tandel, I was heralded as its savior from the Nightmare.
I failed.
This is my story.
I was never a hero, though I tried. Perhaps that is also why I in all things my world no longer exists. But on the day the nightmare came I was nothing more than any other scholar of the arcane arts. Then again in Tandel the word arcane hardly fit. Magic was a way of life, each of us learned to tap the power granted to all life, to channel reservoirs built of the span of a hundred generations. We were gods of the land in the absence of the God who had borne our world. I suspect now in retrospect that his death could be attributed to the Nightmare I fought, that his last will held it off as long as it did.
The day the Nightmare came, the day the first of our ancestors were reanimated and turned against us I was attempting the master the very power of life and increase my own potential, both in terms of how long I would live and the depth of the levels that I could live at. The event of someone rising from the grave unfortunately went unnoticed by most everyone. The matter was of course settled by local authorities of the world capital to which I lived. The whole thing was after all easy to attributed to an aspiring necromancer with far too much time on his hands.
I of course was far from successful in my own endeavors, the imaginary necromancer seemingly more skilled his craft than I was in mine, but it was little less than a month later when I found myself asleep that I remember most clearly. That night, in those dreams for ever after we learned that something had come to our world. We called it the Nightmare for lack of a better name, our language had no word for what it was, though Outsider was close. Its very nature eluded us because with simply knew nothing of its like, even demons summoned from the abyssal planes or the realm chaos that came before creation had nothing like it.
Tandel’s priest were hardly helpful in this regard either, they knew and spoke often that the god they researched and study was dead… they were more archeologist than actual priests. The rites they had learned never worked though evidence that they once had could be verified. With the Nightmare, ancient sites thought to be hallowed ground were able to protect people from the visions the were visited upon people when they slept. Though such sites were rare, often rendered uninhabitable by decay or nature taking back what it had once claimed.
Our emperor did what any good political being would do, he decided simply to throw money at it. I of course being an aspiring alchemist who needed funding for my own research couldn’t resist. A lifetime grant just for finding a magical solution for some half crazed zombies and some bad dreams? How could I resist, how could anyone?
I’ll settle the question now, I didn’t find the solution but rather a former priest turned spellbinder did that. Something about forming mystical energies to reflect that of the holy sites and person’s innate desire for peace.
What I found was something of a different sort, you see the thing is about Tandel alchemist it’s what most other worlds would call a chemist or a potion’s master. We combine the science of chemistry with the power of magic. I was rather skilled in two particular fields of research in alchemy, explosives and tracking potions. The first should be rather obvious, explosives make holes in things, they make doors in things that never had doors, it’s very useful especially when dealing six ton of stone. Tracking potions on the other hand are something most people would find unfamiliar. Tracking spells are nice, scrying its amazingly powerful. But tracking potions take a bit of both and congeal it into something anyone can use.
I was a master at them.
Think of it this way, take a tracking spell that uses a compass, liquefy it, alloy yourself to create a sympathetic link with one object and with an intent, mull that over with a nice brandy and hallucinogenic compound and you have scrying without all the nasty side effects like someone piggybacking on it or altering things. Its instantaneous as well, bordering on seer like knowledge. And that’s how I found the corpse of a god.
And not just any god, The with an extra e God, The God, our God. And no not you’re God. I’m quite happy to say I’ve managed quite well to avoid interacting with other world’s deity’s quiet well thank you very much.
For this God, dead apparently did not equate to no longer consciously affecting the world. Most of what was left of him was a spiritual impression I guess and all of his power, like really powerful self-spelling spell book. It wasn’t sapient anymore, just knowledge, power and very little memory. And on that last part is perhaps why I curse him even to this day. I remember little of my life, granted all my knowledge remains, that is very different from actual memory. It’s been bleached white, all the color of emotion is gone, blasted away by those powerful godborne remembrances.
Even He did not know what the Nightmare was; it was from beyond our universe, possibly an unknown sibling created by the first deity. It killed Him simply because It had the will to do so and He did not. He sacrificed his body to hold it back, and when he endowed me, he gave me that body and sealed it away into that little star on my forehead. I curse him because he did not know me even though we met, I curse him because he should have found the right person, someone who knew what do with the power. I curse him because he did not let me use all of that power right then and there to undo the Nightmare and to become myself a god in his place.
If I had not found Him, the barrier that had slowed the Nightmare down would still be in place, perhaps until the right person came along. Instead I brought it down by simply living.
From there it was attempt after attempt of harnessing the new powers and the knowledge to defeat the Nightmare. In the end each of my victories allowed the Nightmare to use what I destroyed to build itself a better weapon, the weapon in the end become the world, its people and even then it just became the Nightmare itself. I alone was cursed with survival, or blessed with cowardice…
And that really is all my story, unlike many books this main character who I am never had the benefit of growth. Power was thrust upon me and I could not rise to the challenge and succeed. God's gambit of Dues Ex Machina was clearly underrated in terms of epicness and understanding. All and all, the whole thing was blunder, I was nothing extraordinary begin with and that has not changed. Though I may do extraordinary things they themselves it seems always fail to live up to the standards of myth.
I did what I could and I failed. I drew on all my unearthly knowledge and use a traveler’s gateway to pierce the fabric of time, space and reality. I escaped into the abyss, found talents in destroying and reconstituting corrupted spirits purifying any memory they might have and forming them into companions, tools and weapons in much the same way He had done to me. Ages, perhaps eons passed, I have no recollection of any passage of time. The fact was my body was growing younger, a response of alchemical elixir working in concert with my Power. The journey however did not reveal any more of what I had been given and access to it has never changed. Limited.
That was when I arrived on in I guess the reality of Altera which is where I find myself today. The reality itself has perhaps constrained me further; magic after all does not work the same here, or its innate nature of that which I contain which this world attempts to repress. I don’t know either way. I do know that it may be some time before I can attempt my journey beyond this universe and try and find a reality which I can unlock my true potentially… and then maybe I can undo the damage I have caused. If such a place exists… Though it does intrigue me that the beings of this world seem to have a scope of power equal to Him, it also mystifies me that events it seems are playing out in similar fashion to that of the Nightmare’s gambit and yet I do not see evidence that the Nightmare can be found. Would I not recognize a nemesis such as It was?
Troubling indeed.
Age: Undetermined
Height: 4’10
Weight: 5.7 Stone
At first glance the great Darkarma Talon looks like nothing more than some rich elven noble’s spoiled brat. To match his child like appearance is in general a fairly small stature of that of a 10 to 12 year old human child. Despite these two points, that often will leave many a common person shirking any thought that he could be more, he offers three striking features that counter his childlike form. The first of the trio of feature are a set predatory feline pupils framed by eyes of violet crystal pigmentation. For the second notable feature is a patchwork of alternating crimson-maroon and metallic gold hair.
Finally the third of three, Darkarma has placed upon his forehead a single pitch black colored star. As such star acts seemingly as a focal point for his entire existence, often leading those who see him too almost always become drawn its five pointed design before anything else. To this point it seems innately supernatural and at the same time as an anti-existence. It somehow suppresses some part of him and as an unintended consequence anyone who looks upon it in some way. Luckily it’s usually hidden by a crown made of solid obsidian with a single eye like emerald gem at the forefront.
In standard elf fashion Darkarma has the highly stereotypical long pointy ears well worthy of his ancestral heritage and in an addition bearing the dark golden skin tones that the rest of his body benefits from. Said ears also are marked with two rather expensive looking emerald gemstones.
Often Darkarma is clothed in a rather comfortable and rich looking iridescent verdant cloak made of a heavy silk like material. On the back it contains sigil of power but the root of its power or the source of its design is unknown all save for the owner of the cloak. Similar such sigils can be seen in small engravings on his walking staff. All of which have a slightly eerie glow, no one has really bothered to tell him that such displays are considered cliché in this day and age.
That aside the elf wears a dark violet robe, an occasional a flower on his chest, gold bangles and fingerless gloves to finish off the ensemble.
Personality:
He is a survivor no matter what he would say to the contrary. Surviving something is one thing, keeping the mind set to survive anything is another. At his core nature being reliant on others is a hard thing to accept, he’ll go out of his way by miles if need be if it means gaining knowledge or resources first hand. At the same time Darkarma will act as his appearance suggests even though his eyes speak volumes about the wisdom of decades, if not centuries of endured hardship. His closest companion is magic, he sees it as an answer to all things as he has delved deeper than many, which perhaps is the primary source in his belief that he is his own island.
Despite all of this though he is relatively easy to humor though somewhat awkward in social situations, to the point where his worst nightmare relates to being stuck in a confined space while being forced to endure a pregnant or awkward pause in a conversation. He is however quite willing to talk and share knowledge about magic though few ever quite understand his explanations, many of which involve terminology he invented himself or metaphors that only worked in the world he had fled.
One thing is for sure, he is easily entertained and perhaps the true child of his body shows through the most in this one fact.
Backstory:
I walk this path alone marked by last will of a god I never knew as anything but a celestial corpse.
What does one expect when one meets their long dead and yet unforgotten god?
Mine marked me with all his power and the sealed it away.
How does one respond to a gift given and taken?
I damned him to oblivion.
I am Darkarma Talon and I am from a world called Tandel, I was heralded as its savior from the Nightmare.
I failed.
This is my story.
I was never a hero, though I tried. Perhaps that is also why I in all things my world no longer exists. But on the day the nightmare came I was nothing more than any other scholar of the arcane arts. Then again in Tandel the word arcane hardly fit. Magic was a way of life, each of us learned to tap the power granted to all life, to channel reservoirs built of the span of a hundred generations. We were gods of the land in the absence of the God who had borne our world. I suspect now in retrospect that his death could be attributed to the Nightmare I fought, that his last will held it off as long as it did.
The day the Nightmare came, the day the first of our ancestors were reanimated and turned against us I was attempting the master the very power of life and increase my own potential, both in terms of how long I would live and the depth of the levels that I could live at. The event of someone rising from the grave unfortunately went unnoticed by most everyone. The matter was of course settled by local authorities of the world capital to which I lived. The whole thing was after all easy to attributed to an aspiring necromancer with far too much time on his hands.
I of course was far from successful in my own endeavors, the imaginary necromancer seemingly more skilled his craft than I was in mine, but it was little less than a month later when I found myself asleep that I remember most clearly. That night, in those dreams for ever after we learned that something had come to our world. We called it the Nightmare for lack of a better name, our language had no word for what it was, though Outsider was close. Its very nature eluded us because with simply knew nothing of its like, even demons summoned from the abyssal planes or the realm chaos that came before creation had nothing like it.
Tandel’s priest were hardly helpful in this regard either, they knew and spoke often that the god they researched and study was dead… they were more archeologist than actual priests. The rites they had learned never worked though evidence that they once had could be verified. With the Nightmare, ancient sites thought to be hallowed ground were able to protect people from the visions the were visited upon people when they slept. Though such sites were rare, often rendered uninhabitable by decay or nature taking back what it had once claimed.
Our emperor did what any good political being would do, he decided simply to throw money at it. I of course being an aspiring alchemist who needed funding for my own research couldn’t resist. A lifetime grant just for finding a magical solution for some half crazed zombies and some bad dreams? How could I resist, how could anyone?
I’ll settle the question now, I didn’t find the solution but rather a former priest turned spellbinder did that. Something about forming mystical energies to reflect that of the holy sites and person’s innate desire for peace.
What I found was something of a different sort, you see the thing is about Tandel alchemist it’s what most other worlds would call a chemist or a potion’s master. We combine the science of chemistry with the power of magic. I was rather skilled in two particular fields of research in alchemy, explosives and tracking potions. The first should be rather obvious, explosives make holes in things, they make doors in things that never had doors, it’s very useful especially when dealing six ton of stone. Tracking potions on the other hand are something most people would find unfamiliar. Tracking spells are nice, scrying its amazingly powerful. But tracking potions take a bit of both and congeal it into something anyone can use.
I was a master at them.
Think of it this way, take a tracking spell that uses a compass, liquefy it, alloy yourself to create a sympathetic link with one object and with an intent, mull that over with a nice brandy and hallucinogenic compound and you have scrying without all the nasty side effects like someone piggybacking on it or altering things. Its instantaneous as well, bordering on seer like knowledge. And that’s how I found the corpse of a god.
And not just any god, The with an extra e God, The God, our God. And no not you’re God. I’m quite happy to say I’ve managed quite well to avoid interacting with other world’s deity’s quiet well thank you very much.
For this God, dead apparently did not equate to no longer consciously affecting the world. Most of what was left of him was a spiritual impression I guess and all of his power, like really powerful self-spelling spell book. It wasn’t sapient anymore, just knowledge, power and very little memory. And on that last part is perhaps why I curse him even to this day. I remember little of my life, granted all my knowledge remains, that is very different from actual memory. It’s been bleached white, all the color of emotion is gone, blasted away by those powerful godborne remembrances.
Even He did not know what the Nightmare was; it was from beyond our universe, possibly an unknown sibling created by the first deity. It killed Him simply because It had the will to do so and He did not. He sacrificed his body to hold it back, and when he endowed me, he gave me that body and sealed it away into that little star on my forehead. I curse him because he did not know me even though we met, I curse him because he should have found the right person, someone who knew what do with the power. I curse him because he did not let me use all of that power right then and there to undo the Nightmare and to become myself a god in his place.
If I had not found Him, the barrier that had slowed the Nightmare down would still be in place, perhaps until the right person came along. Instead I brought it down by simply living.
From there it was attempt after attempt of harnessing the new powers and the knowledge to defeat the Nightmare. In the end each of my victories allowed the Nightmare to use what I destroyed to build itself a better weapon, the weapon in the end become the world, its people and even then it just became the Nightmare itself. I alone was cursed with survival, or blessed with cowardice…
And that really is all my story, unlike many books this main character who I am never had the benefit of growth. Power was thrust upon me and I could not rise to the challenge and succeed. God's gambit of Dues Ex Machina was clearly underrated in terms of epicness and understanding. All and all, the whole thing was blunder, I was nothing extraordinary begin with and that has not changed. Though I may do extraordinary things they themselves it seems always fail to live up to the standards of myth.
I did what I could and I failed. I drew on all my unearthly knowledge and use a traveler’s gateway to pierce the fabric of time, space and reality. I escaped into the abyss, found talents in destroying and reconstituting corrupted spirits purifying any memory they might have and forming them into companions, tools and weapons in much the same way He had done to me. Ages, perhaps eons passed, I have no recollection of any passage of time. The fact was my body was growing younger, a response of alchemical elixir working in concert with my Power. The journey however did not reveal any more of what I had been given and access to it has never changed. Limited.
That was when I arrived on in I guess the reality of Altera which is where I find myself today. The reality itself has perhaps constrained me further; magic after all does not work the same here, or its innate nature of that which I contain which this world attempts to repress. I don’t know either way. I do know that it may be some time before I can attempt my journey beyond this universe and try and find a reality which I can unlock my true potentially… and then maybe I can undo the damage I have caused. If such a place exists… Though it does intrigue me that the beings of this world seem to have a scope of power equal to Him, it also mystifies me that events it seems are playing out in similar fashion to that of the Nightmare’s gambit and yet I do not see evidence that the Nightmare can be found. Would I not recognize a nemesis such as It was?
Troubling indeed.
Assorted Images
Evocation of High Magic
.