Welcome to Gaia! ::

Skills

Alchemy/Enchanting: Expert
-Hey, I like building things, okay? It's like....I create a world, and when the world works, it feels good. Like, really good. Once I found out that DoorBot, may it rest in piece, wouldn't overload when there was no wall, I think I passed out from the joy. Yeah, I like building things. And also reshaping them. And it's also really useful to be able to make everything change with the snap of a finger. I can also alchemize stuff together, even when some of it doesn't really exist outside of magic. Want a stick that shoots rainbows? I can make it happen. Probably. You might want to try it outside, first. It didn't blow up? Sweet, I'm getting better at that. Nothing to be afraid of, I swear!

And these spells also pretty good for keeping people out. Tax collectors...demons....Nestor...but mainly demons. I got pretty good at keeping the demons out during the Second War. I don't know how many walls I built, but it was a lot. DoorBot would have been elated with the number of walls around back then....so yeah. That reminds me, I need to fix that window....

Visual Illusions: Advanced
-...what? No, I don't want to be seen. LOOK OVER THERE, IT'S A VOLCANO! ...nothing? Darn, you're good. I don't want to fight you, alright? I have things to do, and pain is just distracting. Besides, Lorika and the Overseer don't go around beating up people, right? Oh, Cressa? ...she's....odd. She doesn't count. Still, I have things to do, and I need to get away from you for a bit. Here, shake my hand, worthy adversary.

HAH, I'm actually on the other side of the island. Not really, I'm actually over in Spellcasting. You've been talking to an illusion the whole time. No really. I swear.

Drowic Bio-Alchemy: Beginner/currently learning
-This stuff is crazy. Those drow are just....wow. they're the only ones crazy enough to try something like this, much less make it work. I never knew that fungi worked like that, much less that you can make them grow on raw magic if you do it right. Cool, right? CAN YOU TELL HOW AWESOME THIS IS? ...why so important, whatever do you mean? I can grow things literally anywhere if I learn this stuff. Never be hungry again! Repair the damage to the forest from the Second War. This stuff is ridiculous!

Drowic Magic (general): Beginner/currently learning
-I don't even know where to start. It's like....you know that feeling when you're at the top of the stairs, and you feel dizzy all of a sudden? ...vertigo, is that what it's called? Neat. Anyway, walking around normally would be like normal magic, and that vertigo at the top of the stairs? That's Drow magic. ...still confused? Uhh...well, you know how you can just tell if someone's been in your room, and something just feels 'off'? It's kinda like that. It feels familiar like magic, but the way they use it is just....weeeeird. Crazy-awesome, though, especially the whole sensing-life thing that they made for the caves. I really want to try it, but I get a headache every time.

Auramancy: Adept
-You know what's cool? Auras. Auras are awesome. For example, you seem to be a pretty green person. You must really be into living things...fish maybe? No? Well, I'm not that good at this. OH, wanna see something cool? Plug your ears and let your mind go blank. Ready? Cool, right? I can talk to your mind! It won't work once you leave here though, I don't know you well enough. Oh? You mean that Evelyn is right behind us? Hmm....yeah, no, don't worry about it. It's just Nestor disguised as Evelyn. He's actually been getting pretty good at those disguises. Oh, yeah, I should probably get him out of here, he has this habit of breaking my stuff. Alright, good? Bye then!

Spellcasting (general): Adept
-I know a lot about a lot. Well what do you expect? It's not like I hang out at parties or anything, I spend all that time studying stuff. Did you know that there are at least a dozen ways to treat constipation, and only half of them involve putting more stuff in your body? And this wall here, this is made out of compressed seashells. I had some leftovers from the stuff I took from the rubble.....so I made it part of my wall. It looks nice, yes? I can also levitate stuff, like me! I've actually almost died a few times, but I've managed to fire off a Levitate just before becoming person-paste. Do you like fireworks? How about ones that don't actually light anyone on fire? I've made some of those

Talents

Hawkeye - Xeiashi used to have a monocle. Only one eye was really messed up, the other was only a bit blurry. Regardless, after misplacing the monocle one-too-many times, he got fed up and began transmuting his eyes. Nothing went wrong (thank the Overseer), and in fact his eyes are better than most humans'.
=Grants the ability to see in near-pitch-black/foggy/etc. conditions just as well as a normal person sees on a good day. Additionally, he can see clearly at much larger distances than most (nearly on par with Elves and Avians)
=+2 to all sight- and detail-related rolls
=Causes an aversion to bright lights. It hurts a lot more to look at the Sun if your eyes are much better than most.

Aura Sense - It's not quite magic, but it's not quite normal vision either. It's something in-between...maybe. Xei calls it an 'aura', and each person seems to have a unique one. It pains him to no end that the field of auramancy (his term, most likely incorrect) is not being studied. Cressa seems to know something about it, but he keeps forgetting to ask.
= Grants ability to see the aura of others (Auramancy skill, see top).
= +3 to rolls vs disguises/illusions that take the form of someone he knows well.
= -3 to all rolls vs. chaotic-aura creatures (some demons, Cressa, etc.). He needs to specifically stop seeing auras just to learn from Cressa at all.

Misplaced Respect? - Panda was the greatest wizard of all time, how dare you insult him!
= +1 to all rolls vs. anyone who insults the late Professor Panda
= Xei will fly into a rage in some cases, causing an inability to use any Illusion, Auramancy, General Spellcasting (Non-offensive, at least), or Bio-Alchemy skills. He gains an Advanced rank in Kinetic Magic for the duration of the rage (Kinetic Magic: Spells that move things. Xei's use of raw energy to shove things around is draining, but effective)

Mostly Harmless: Usually. He's not dangerous, just....eccentric.
= Xei's unique reputation grants him a bit more leeway, it seems. +1 to all rolls that involve Xei explaining himself to any member of the Order that knows him.
=+2 to all rolls based on being ignored/not appearing suspicious. With Xei's reputation, normally odd behavior is written off as 'That kid is just weird, don't worry about him'.

In the Gaian Sea, there is a tiny island that not many people know of. It is the island of Tem, the tropical home to the Themisian people. The Themisians are a very close-knit clan of fishers and foragers headed by the 'Wise Ones', a group of mages that help to keep the island utopia hidden from the world. Daily life there consists of doing nothing in particular, unless it happens to be your day to go out on the fishing vessel or into the dense farms of fruit. All in all, a very quaint lifestyle.

It is to a pair of the Wise Ones that Xeiashi is born, and from the start, he was a weird child. Whereas most children would rush about the village, swim in the nearby shoals, or climb the plentiful fruit trees, Xei would sit on his rock and stare at the horizon. When he was not sitting on his rock, he would be learning everything he could from the relaxing older clansmembers, diving to explore the ocean's botton, or building things out of spare branches. He was always curious, and it was not long before his curiosity got out of hand.

One day, when tagging along on the fishing vessel, he spotted a strange flying object. It was vaguely fruit-shaped, and flew much higher than any bird he had ever seen. Before the other fishers noticed, then-8-year-old Xei had hopped off the boat and started to swim after the strange flying thing. It had never occurred to him that this was dangerous, nor that he should ask the elder members. There were strange things out there that just needed to be seen. So he swam.

And swam....and swam. Soon enough, it was night, and he kept swimming. By the light of the full moon, always a good luck symbol to the fishermen, he spotted a shape on the horizon. It was the coast near Barton, and shortly before daybreak, exhausted and hungry, Xeiashi crawled onto the beach and fell asleep. When he awoke, he was in a strange whitish room being asked questions by people in white coats.

He had been found and brought to the hospital by a Duremite that happened across his sleeping body. After the events at the hospital had been sorted out (Xei had never seen so much obsession with scratching white sheets), he was taken in by Marsia, the teen who had found him. She was apparently part of a youth group that had fled the bustle of Durem to live in the abandoned caves to the north, where they had a reasonably comfy dwelling established before too long. This was all explained to a dazed Xei, who was completely floored by all the new things to see and learn about.

For the next few years, Xei lived with the group in the Durem Caves, part of the 'Outpost Cavers'. He doesn't remember this time very well, as all of his time was spent learning about the world around him from Marsia, who was something of a big sister to him the whole time. Eventually, after 3 years in the caves, he bid farewell to the Cavers and set out to learn about all of the things that 'Big Sister Mar' had mentioned, but not explained.

Thus, at age 11, he found himself on the streets of Barton. Now Barton, being the place that it is, is not friendly to the homeless, and Xei was quickly found a place to live by the first person he had ventured to talk to. It was not a luxurious place by any means, but it had food, water, and a bed, which was more than enough for the busy Xeiashi. He spent a few years in Barton town, reading everything he could find, attending every lecture and class that he could sneak into, and generally being a creative nuisance of himself.

It was at this time that he first discovered his magic, which quickly became his new favorite pastime. He had been reading about how 'certain individuals can use magic.....blahblahblah' and how it could do 'wondrous things'...so he tried it. To his amazement, it worked! He had muttered some words on a scrap of paper, and his room lit up as if there were a sun shining in it! From that point on, he devoted himself more and more to the study of this strange art....and it was then that the Great War started.

During the war....well, not even he remembers this part clearly. He last remembers being given a pair of envelopes by two strange-looking people on the street one day, one written in a calming blue on white paper, the other written in angry black on blood-red paper. After reading them, he set off with all haste for this 'B.O.O.', feeling that he could discover amazing things about magic there. Next thing he knew, he's in a hospital bed (again, he thought) with numerous tubes shoved up his arms and a nurse asking how he felt and that he's been in a coma for over a week.
He does remember a few major things from the War, namely the Overseer and Panda.

Ah yes, Panda. As we all know, he was working for the Sentinel. Xeiashi had run-ins with him a few times while serving in the BOO, mainly revolving around 'who's THAT? What magic IS that?' Eventually, during a raid on SIN, he met Panda face-to-face...and promptly was seriously injured by a spell that tossed him clear across the battlefield, only to land in a pile of discarded latrines. That -in short- is how he wound up in the hospital, and he is still curious and terrified by this 'Panda'.

After his recovery, Xei returned to his house, bored with the mediocrity after the War's conclusion. When he received word that the Order had set up a base on the Gambino Island, he immediately started gathering materials to build a raft that would get him there. A few weeks passed before the C-raft (as he called it) was completed, and on the journey over the water, it would sink a few miles off of the Gambino coast. This forced Xei to swim for it, and by the time he got to shore, he was thirsty and delusional, but was revived by Evelyn, and the two have been good friends ever since. For a time, Xei's life was filled with studying and building a small house for himself in the woods, both ventures were successful, and as a result he had a safe place to practice his new style of Alchemy.



Xeiashi is somewhat of a prankster. When he learns something, he tends to use it, with varying results, such as when he and Evelyn created chaos in the Spellcasting halls when they learned the Bounce spell. (The smell didn't come out for days!). He is rarely open about himself, but is always happy to help with work at the Order (although his views on 'good, complete work' aren't quite.....normal).

Additionally, over his weeks at the Order, his fear of Panda decreased to the point that he made the mistake of breaking his door. After a terror-filled period of time, he escaped and decided that Panda should be avoided at all costs, regardless of the fact that he won't go on a killing spree. All thoughts of learning from the crazy wizard were forgotten at this point, although the deep respect remained.

After the explosion, Xeiashi devoted much time and effort to itemizing the destruction, then far more time and effort looking for Panda's remains, unsure all the while. He eventually decided that his sadness stemmed from all of the great (albeit crazy) wizard's lost knowledge. This unsurety cumulated during the funeral service, where he broke down and did nothing much for hours on end while sitting on the beach. He believes the whole mess to be his fault, because he broke the door, and is quite depressed because he will never know all of Panda's secrets.

During the rebuilding, Xei meets Julian and Nestor, a pair of brothers that are determined to reveal Xei as the SINner he is(n't). Shortly enough, the pair of children are tied up in everything that Xei does. If he builds something, they sabotage it, or spy on it, or take it as further evidence of his SINhood. Based on what they have said to Xei on occasion, they blame him for something, but he can't figure out what it is.

Each night, Julian and Nestor return to their house in town to tell their tales to their adoptive mother, Marsia, who had once cared for Xeiashi as well. A few years after Xei had left, the Cavers had fallen apart when various creatures began roaming the lands and attacking townsfolk in the area. Marsia had gone to Gambino with Julian and Nestor, and the rest, as they say, is history.

After his brief attempt at being productive, he lapsed back into his random-thoughts self. In this state, he discovered a method of determining magical auras, built a small, dysfunctional robot, and met Alexi. This has led him to believe that being around people is a good thing, so he now plans to go to the Ball for numerous reasons. He has also been shown to be forgetful and a bit of a slob when it comes to unfinished work.



Following the altogether hectic events leading up to the Ball, and the....interesting happenings at the Ball itself, Xei devoted himself even more to his studies of magic, searching high and low for any arcane texts. When the Overseer returned, he was one of the few who were absent, as a flubbed spell had left him nearly unable to walk, and he couldn't levitate into the heavily-warded celebration.

At some point after the Overseer had returned, Xei was approached by a strange figure in a black cloak, who had asked him about wanting "Power beyond your wildest dreams". He shrugged and said "So what, you are going to suddenly give me all the power in the world? Why? Honestly, you people and your doomsday offerings, I'll have none of it. True power is knowing, not showing. Now outta the way, I have real work to do.". This last was said with an ominous crackling of energy, and the man left without a word. That was the last he saw of the strange man for a long while.

When the new Spellcasting master showed up, Xei sympathized with Cressa, and generally avoided the newcomer. To him, Panda was the greatest wizard that had ever lived (nevermind that he was terrified of him) and that the replacement was a pale shade of what the old master had been.

...and then the demons came



Early on in the Second War, Xei found himself a job that he was uniquely suited for. Having learned basic aura detection a few months prior, as well as various illusion and invisibility spells, he was enlisted as a forward scout. When a new portal was being opened, he could detect the aura of evil, and would then observe and report on its location and size. Even in war, he was learning, albeit dangerously.

Once the demons gained momentum, Xei was reassigned to the back lines. His new task was to repair any damage, magical, physical, or barrier-related that he could find. When the final assault came, he was busy making as many stone walls as he could to keep the demons away, but they plowed through them as if they were paper. By the time the Sentinel appeared on the battlefield, he was completely powerless due to fatigue, and had retreated to the roof to survey the damage and relay the demons' movements (as if that would help when the Temple is crumbling around them).

...and then the roof explodes....again. For the second time since he joined the Order, Xei found himself flying through the air, and there was no comforting ocean to land in where he was headed. Thankfully, he had learned some levitation spells, and was able to summon a last erg of magic to stop himself from a bone-shattering impact. It left him unconscious for a while, though, and it was hours before he awoke and began the trek back to the Temple.



Thanks to the physics that have decided that a high-flying Xeiashi should land far away from the Temple, Xei did not return to the temple for a few days. In the meantime, he walked, got lost, got found, and repeated the cycle many times. With each passing day, his stomach protested more and more, despite the alchemy-created sorta-food, and his walking speed slowed to a crawl. He probably would have resorted to eating everything in sight, had he not detected a strange, powerful aura in the distance. It was similar to the Sentinel's....but somehow different. Figuring that he had nothing else to lose, he set himself walking in that direction. Only a day later, he had arrived back at the Temple, the aura guiding him was that of the Guardian and the portal-in-construction. This was new, exciting!....but food came first, and Xeiashi did not leave the mess hall until all of the week's leftovers were gone.

The next months were among Xei's best. He was learning entirely new branches of magic from Cressa, who had agreed to take him on as an apprentice, and everything about the portal just begged to be examined. In his spare time, he would pop into the portal just to see what there is to see, and at the first sign of danger, pop back out. He also created DeskBot, the most stable of the 'Bots to date, and he has been thinking of making another. Nestor and Julian are still around and causing mischief, though they seemed to be more concerned with joining the Order now that they are old enough. Nestor seems to be picking up Combat fairly quickly, and Julian can always be found reading the books left in the prayer rooms.



Will be made later, as I can't think of anything good to go here. It will have a crisis, however!



-Will be created as the RP moves along

(note, anyone may use these characters, so long as they are kept in-character. The key here is 'adventurous, hard-to-catch little kids')

Nestor

Race: Human
Culture: Gambinoan, Super Team Team Smash Club...ber
Age: 11
Height: 4'9

The elder brother, also known as Leader to his small group of followers (collectively, the Super Team Team Smash Club), is the mastermind of the duo's plots. He knows quite a few things and has (relatively) excellent ideas, but often doesn't realize how out-of-place and conspicuous the idea turns out to be. He is extremely confident and decisive, with a good bullheaded self-righteous streak to boot. He is currently training with pestering the Combat students, though despite not officially being in their ranks, he has picked up quite a few skills.

Skills:
Combat (general) - Adept
Indirect Combat: Stealth and Deception - Beginner

Talents:

Charismatic Youth: No matter what he is doing, Nestor gets a +1 to rolls vs. older people (~age 16 and above) due to his 'cute (read, harmless) nature'. +1 does not apply to those that know him (such as Xei, Marsia, and anybody else that catches him causing mischief.)

Roguelike: Nestor is extremely good at going unnoticed and getting away when detected. He also knows how to set up some primitive traps and disguise himself when needed (though the disguise itself may stick out like a sore thumb). +1 to any hiding/running/escaping/disguising/trapping rolls

Julian

Race: Human
Culture: Gambinoan
Age: 10
Height: 4'8

The younger brother under Marsia's care. He is much more softspoken and reflective than his older brother, whom he follows endlessly (despite the sometimes-harsh beatings that Nestor gives him when he ventures to correct the older brother). He is extremely indecisive and usually defers to Nestor's judgement, except in the rare case where he will pull his brother out of a very dangerous situation. When not occupied with Nestor's plans, Julian can often be found reading the books strewn around the Temple's holy places.

Skills:
First Aid: Beginner
Combat (Slingshot): Adept

Talents:

Childish Senses - Julian is unusually attuned to people, and can often determine if they are 'good' or 'bad', and usually their mood, within a few moments of first seeing them. +2 to understanding- and insight-related rolls

Scamper - If it isn't Nestor picking on him, it's something else worth running from. Always. As a result, Julian is exceptional at running away. +2 to escaping/running/hiding rolls.

Did you know:

In Borderlands, there is a gun that never runs out of ammo. There is also a gun that, when scoped, empties its entire clip at once. With a game modder, you can put parts from those guns together and get a gun that NEVER runs out of ammo and empties this INFINITE clip all at once.

It is a laser of lead.

Not enuf dakka!