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Castor Phecda
#1
CASTOR PHECDA
Race: Human
Gender: Male
Age: 27
Height: 5' 11"
Weight: 180 lbs

Strength: Strong (Transcendent Body Lvl. 4)

Physical Description: Castor is a Caucasian man with dark brown hair of medium length. He often wears his hair loose but occasionally pins it up in a bun, of sorts, or slicks it back for formal events. He has piercing, gray irises that begin at near-white on the outside, fading to black near the pupil. He is clean shaven, except when he's feeling lazy and doesn't shave for a few days. His athletic training gives him a fit physique; muscular without being bulky.

Apparel: Castor is most often seen in his working outfit. This consists of a pair of rugged leather sandles, copper orange knit pants with leather greaves reaching from just below the knee to nearly his ankle, tied with belts. Over that he wears a white button up tunic, with a silver sleeveless vest and a tan cape. Over his head he wraps red and blue strips of cloth that trail behind him.

Backstory: Castor was born in a rural town near Tiburon in the Ballena Empire. His father was of Ballena and his mother of Kuanepi giving Castor a rich heritage and genetically diverse bloodline. He takes after his father in stature but has the darker coloring of his mother.
The household, growing up, was divided in several ways. The two biggest divisions were cultural and religious. These were often at the root of arguments over which direction Castor's life should lead. His father was a practical man, seeing the use of his hands more valuable than anything else. His ancestors came from across the western sea, where the use of magic was rare. His father inherited his forefather's fear of magic and had developed a disdain for it. So, Castor's father trained him in the crafts of blacksmithing and swordsmanship, as his father had for him.
His mother, on the other hand, saw the value of some magics. Her religion held magic in high regard and saw it as an important aspect of life for spiritual health. So she taught Castor in secret, focusing on Body Magic to at least compliment his father's training. Her teachings allowed Castor the understanding of a True Mage, training him also in Primal Magic.
Castor grew up in these conditions, learning his father's trade and combat style along with his mother's magic. When he was old enough, he joined his father in the family business. He worked hard for several years, soon having enough money to begin building his own house. When it was completed, he proposed to his girlfriend of a few years, now that they had a place of their own to live.
They set a date for their wedding and made preparations to be married in Tiburon. Castor could not later decide if it was arrogance or ignorance that lead them to have the wedding on the coast, because on that day, a group of Pirates landed and attacked the gathering.
Castor was forced to use his magic to defend his bride and their families and friends, not having his sword nearby. Castor could only protect those few he cared about most. When the pirates left, only he and his parents remained. Castor had kept his bride close, but the pirates overwhelmed him and took her for their own. He stayed in Tiburon for nearly a month, trying to find a way to get to Orl Island, where the Pirates based. During this time he also focused his efforts on developing an ability to search for his Fiance. One day he felt he had a sense of where the island was so he sailed out on his own. But the island was no where to be found.
He finally returned home to find that his father was gone. His mother explained that he had felt betrayed that they had kept Castor's magic training a secret all these years. Castor stayed with his mother for about a year but his father never returned. He decided that she would be alright and returned to Tiburon to continue his search for his fiance.

Skills and Abilities

Blacksmithing: Castor has trained since he was a child in the craft of Blacksmithing. He is able to craft fine metal works such as swords and armor.

Enhanced Hearing: [Adonis Lvl 2] - Castor has the ability to hear frequencies above and below the normal human range. He can hear most high or low frequency animal sounds as from bats or whales. He can also detect low frequency sounds caused by natural events such as earthquakes and lightening.

Aspect: True Mage [Focus: Body]

Aspect: Transcendent Body

Leveled Talent: ADONIS
Your attunement with body magics passively alters your body, awakening your inner potential turning you into a an embodiment of physical perfection.

Lvl 0. Your skin is clear and flawless, unscarred or marked by blemish or time. You can exercise complete control over your bodily functions (heartbeat and the like).
Lvl 1. Your immune system quickly deals with any illness, disease or pathogen.
Lvl 2. Your eyes are clear and piercing, your irises a brilliant shade of their color. A sense of your choice becomes enhanced [Hearing].
Lvl 3. Your body rapidly burns excess fat and builds your musculature to maintain a perfect equilibrium. You can control the type of physical sensation for touch causes.
Lvl 4. Your strength level naturally increases by a level. Your leaping ability doubles.


Spells

Body

LEVEL 1
Center - Passive. Strengthen your body's core muscles and shift your center of gravity, allowing you to keep your balance in most situations.
LEVEL 2
Feel - Boost your body's physical sensitivity, enhancing your sense of touch.
LEVEL 3
Harden - Thicken and toughen your skin into a leathery armor, rendering you resistant to slashes and burns.
LEVEL 4
Suppress - Through striking a part of a person's body in melee, you can partially paralyze that body part for a post. This can slow limbs, cause shortness of breath, etc.


Primal/Mage Talent

LEVEL 1

Minor Telekinesis - You can manipulate any unattended object in sight that weighs at most 5lb, or push/pull any target with just enough force to lift 5lb. Capable of fine and precise movements. If the object is later grabbed this spell does not end (if maintained).
Shield - Raise your hand, palm out, to generate a barely visible construct of applied force, circular with a 1ft radius, in the air inches from your palm. Acts as a suspended shield, tough as wood (modifier 1). It is frozen in place until you stop maintaining it or recast it elsewhere (is not a summon).
Foothold - The next step you take meets equal upward force, allowing that step to land on a surface level with the last step you took, granting you an extra step or two over open air or liquid.

LEVEL 2
Hone - By contact generate a film of force over a dull object, granting any dull edges sharpness and refining any already sharp edges.

LEVEL 3
Repel - Passive. You gain the ability to propel the force construct created by your Shield spell, launching the shield forward with average strength. You can have the shield expand when pushed, becoming up to 3' in radius but easier to break through. The shield dissipates after moving 6'.


Spatial Sense - Castor has developed a technique to help him find something dear to him along with other things. By touching an object* or creature he can glean a more precise understanding of not only its dimensions but also the gist of what the target is made out of. He can mentally store up to three such mental models at a time.
*If he touches a very large object he can only glean the dimensions / store a mental model of 10 cubic feet of it.

Castor can sense the general direction of anything he has stored the mental model of.

Castor may, though concentration, update his mental model to reflect the current state of the original creature/item. He can do this in real time, effectively watching a creature move about in a black void.

Should the target willingly accept Castor's power he also gains the ability to view that person's immediate surroundings (~5') when he updates their status. Non-magical objects are always considered willing.

Spatial Focus - Castor can choose one of the creatures/objects he's stored models of in his mind, if it is willing, to be his Anchor. This choice can only be changed whenever he stops storing that model in his mind.

By inscribing a complex*, 2' radius clock-like rune onto a solid surface, and picking a period of time ("4 hours"), and stepping onto it, Castor can teleport himself and his nonliving, carried possessions to his Anchor's side after a short delay (about a minute) The rune's clock-like glow counts down until the allotted time has past, at which point Castor teleports back to the rune (which fades away) whether he wants to or not. Everything that teleported with Castor, and only that, returns with him when his time is up. Only one such rune can be created at a time.
*Takes about 3-5 minutes to draw.

Weapons and Armor
The Blessing - A steel double-edged long sword with a curved tip and a two-handed hilt.

The Malediction - A steel gauntlet with sharp claws.
-The Malediction modifies any runes on it, slightly tweaking their effect to better fit its grasping nature.
Primal Rune Effect - Once every three turns, the gauntlet is able to catch an energy projectile and hold it briefly before sending it back.

Gold: 100g (300g spent on Spells)

Minors:
Blacksmithing (.5 Minor) (To be developed later)
Spatial Sense (2 Minors)
Spacial Focus (1.5 Minors)
The Malediction (1 Minor)
Reply
#2
This is mostly done. I could use some help with the weapons/minors. I layed out the basics of what I'd like but I'm not sure if they should be more or less powerful. I'd definitely like to develop all of them a bit more but I guess I'm a little unsure of which direction to go in. I'd like for the character to have an anti-magic element. Most of his magic enhances his melee abilities, with some exceptions. But if there's a way to negate/defend against a larger variety of magic attacks, I'd like to work that in.
Reply
#3
Alright! Aside from what you've asked for help with:

Backstory: Looks good! A few comments: His father's religion is reasonable enough, although I don't imagine it is a very widespread one.

The promised magic dump: I was thinking magic use generally falls into two categories - external and internal. The end results are the same, but some folk (most pure humans) mostly draw in and convert surrounding magical energy while others (more fey-ish people and individuals with LTs that effect their body - like Adonis as it were) tend to convert the magic their own body produces. It's generally not either/or - most people use a mixture of both types when casting spells. Avarka has a high concentration of magical energy compared to distant lands - it might make more sense if his father / grandfather / great-grandfather was an immigrant from beyond the western see where regular humans would have more trouble casting spells. It might seem very unnatural indeed to arrive in a land where almost everyone has at least has the potential to cast a little magic.

--
On Minors:

Blacksmithing: Crafting rules are still being played around with. Anyway, this is fine. If you want to tweak/replace/etc this later once we better define crafting that's also fine. Suggesting crafting rule ideas is also fine! Hrm.. I could just move the crafting rule suggestion thread to the member lounge..

The Malediction: The effect is fine. Since it is slightly different from primal rune I'd go with:
An iron gauntlet/glove (mod 3) with sharp claws.
> The Malediction modifies any runes on it, slightly tweaking their effect to better fit its grasping, wicked nature.
> Primal Rune Effect: Once every three posts, the gauntlet is able to catch an energy projectile and hold it briefly before sending it back.

The blessing: A single non-magical weapon wouldn't count as minor - he can just have this. I'd mention what it is made out of (steel?)

Spatial Awareness: This is fine.

Extended Sense: Depending on how it is supposed to work, this ranges from strong to incredibly strong. Safe scouting is nothing to scoff at. Perfect, undetectable scouting without a defined range is... problematic. There are a few ways to tweak this:

> Focus on finding something specific - perhaps he can ping things/people he has a piece of (like a lock of hair).
> Very short range but more universal in use.
> A mixture of the previous two.
> Replace it with something else entirely (give The Blessing a magical effect?).

On Anti-Magic: Well, he has the human racial ability to shrug off direct magical effects. He also has projectile redirection, and high level primal magic has a lot of anti-magic / messing around with spells effects. I think he's going to have a lot of anti-magic without putting more into it. I guess he could have some sort of "people I injure can't cast spells above Yth level for X posts" or "I sense when magic is being used in the area" or "area dispel once every Z posts" ability.

OOC-wise, we've avoided ways of completely shutting down spells as people that are good with weapons shouldn't need to do that to compete and getting completely shut down isn't all that fun. We've striven to avoid making spells so strong that that level of anti-magic needs to exist. If we missed something in the spell system we'd rather fix the spell issue than have some sort of mages-get-to-do-nothing-now-sorry power be in the setting.
Reply
#4
Backstory: Reworked that a bit to fit better with your added setting info.

Blacksmithing: I think I will save this Minor for later, once we've layed out the crafting system. I was just hoping for a bit of a boost. Maybe cheaper runes or something. But I'll figure it out later.

The Malediction: I liked your suggestions and I took them.

The Blessing: Added a Vital Rune to this sword and gave it a few tweaked spells. I really want one for Foothold but it seems the mechanics of the spell won't really work in my favor. If you have any ideas, I'm open for suggestions.

Extended Sense: Changed to Spatial Sense. Limited to finding specific objects or people with no movement of senses. And sort of combined it with Spatial Awareness.
Reply
#5
Spacial Sense: I think.. this would trigger itself? Spy on person A, person B gets near A, can now spy on person B. If that's how it works Castor could become an incredibly powerful information dealer just by looking out his window and leapfrogging between his ever growing number of unwilling spies.

Even if it doesn't trigger itself, though, it has the following traits:
> Unlimited Range
> Very easy to add new victims to his collection, which has no maximum size.
> Victims have no way to ever free themselves from the effect (aside from killing Castor).

I call them victims because.. well, someone being able to look over your shoulder at any moment without you knowing is kinda like being cursed.

Scaring every organization with secrets aside, as written he could read up on any lost items of value (artifacts or whatever) and then set off for them like an arrow.

Anyway, it sounds like you really want unlimited range... hrm.. maybe:

Spatial Sense - Castor has developed a technique to help him find something dear to him along with other things. By touching an object* or creature he can glean a more precise understanding of not only its dimensions but also the gist of what the target is made out of. He can mentally store up to three such mental models at a time. *If he touches a very large object he can only glean the dimensions / store a mental model of 10 cubic feet of it.
<ul><li>Castor can sense the general direction of anything he has stored the mental model of.</li>
<li>Castor may, though concentration, update his mental model to reflect the current state of the original creature/item. He can do this in real time, effectively watching a creature move about in a black void.</li>
<li>Should the target willingly accept Castor's power he also gains the ability to view that person's immediate surroundings (~5') when he updates their status. Non-magical objects are always considered willing.</li></ul>

I wouldn't underestimate information-gathering abilities.
--------------------------------------------------

The intent of vital rune was to just let any instance of "you", "your body", etc also effect the weapon and anything that requires you to, say, touch a target can be done through the weapon. The Spatial Sense suggestion I posted above would be an example of that - anyone hit by the sword would could be targeted. I think gaining a custom variant of most spells would be.. well, I think there would be a rush to get vital weapons. :p

That said, maybe tweak the blade to do that for a few spells?

The Blessing - A steel double-edged long sword with a curved tip and a two-handed hilt.
> Whenever he adds a rune to the blade Castor can imbue the weapon with any one spell he knows, creating a staff-approved version of that spell that has been tweaked to fit being cast from a sword. He can only cast this version of the spell by wielding the blade. The effects of passive spells that modify his chosen spell might also have a modified effect, as appropriate. Whenever Castor learns a new spell he can swap out one of his chosen spells for another.
> Runes: Basic Art: Vital
Rune Effects:
> Spells Chosen: Shield
Spell Effects:
>As you wrote. Those tweaks look fine to me.<

^The Blessing's power would be very strong, but on the other hand he'd have to already know the base spells and they are unlikely to be that different in how they are to be used. Probably.. 1.5 minors? Spatial Sense would probably be more like 2 (compare it to similar spells / LT levels). Grab an ordinary bow with some arrows to get even more mileage out of it, perhaps? I think dropping blacksmithing and spatial awareness (spatial sense covers it, albiet not at a range) would result in the whole pile (Blessing/Malediction/Spatial Sense) being about five minors.

Granted, I don't know if this is what you're looking for.
Reply
#6
Alright. I adopted your changes to Spatial Sense and dropped Spatial Awareness. That works for me. I dropped the Rune on The Blessing since the spells aren't really very different. I would like to hold on to Blacksmithing for now.

I added Teleport to finish off my minors. If I need to use 2 minors for this, I'm willing to drop Blacksmithing. But if it's close to 1 minor, I could nerf it down a bit. I could probably combine it fully with Spatial Awareness instead of just having them linked, now that I think about it. But let me know what you think.

Just to give an idea of how I will be using these powers. Spatial Awareness will be used at first to look for a person. This person is unwilling to reveal their location so Castor won't be able to simply teleport to her. The other two slots will be used to keep track of/search for items.

Once the person is found, Teleport will save a slot to move quickly to her. Another slot will hold a safe place, probably permenantly. And a third will stay open for on-the-fly movements within sight. He would have to give up the second or third slot to be able to teleport to a non-magical item found with Spatial Sense.
Reply
#7
IMO, Teleport is really powerful. As an example, teleportation is a level 10 spell that only allows movement within 200'. Being able to go basically anywhere seems like it is more powerful than any minor ability we would allow. Of course, staff has the final say on this, just adding my 2 copper Smile
Reply
#8
The spell Udo is referring to Lightspeed (Light 10A), which is not exactly tactical teleportation but effectively would be in practice, I suppose.

I think Castor's ability is most similar to the Unstuck spell (level 10C vital), except much stronger (in several ways) and also taking a page from waking dreamer level 10. Fighting someone who's teleporting anywhere within sight every post is.. yeah. That's ignoring that his ability doesn't leave any hint of where he went- if he teleports behind someone they have no real reason to instantly know that. An assassin's dream, basically.

That said, I've been trying to think of a version that I'd be okay with approving that still fit your general intent. I've been having difficulty doing that though, tbh.

It could take too long to use in combat, but that would still allow for certain tactics I'm not sure how I feel about. Combat speed but shorter range with a cooldown, no assassination instagib ports, and a he-went-that-way feeling is basically Unstuck.

I'm willing to keep pondering ways of making it work (probably focus on the "teleport to one specific person and back again" aspect with some caveats, since if that person stays in a safe place that covers 2/3ds of what you intended to use that ability for anyway), but if you don't feel very strongly about wanting it I'd suggest going with something else.

Edit: I think I would be fine with the following, although I'm not sure if it is close enough to your original idea for you to want it:

Spatial Focus - Castor can choose one of the creatures/objects he's stored models of in his mind, if it is willing, to be his Anchor. This choice can only be changed whenever he stops storing that model in his mind.

By inscribing a complex*, 2' radius clock-like rune onto a solid surface, and picking a period of time ("4 hours"), and stepping onto it, Castor can teleport himself and his nonliving, carried possessions to his Anchor's side after a short delay (about a minute) The rune's clock-like glow counts down until the allotted time has past, at which point Castor teleports back to the rune (which fades away) whether he wants to or not. Everything that teleported with Castor, and only that, returns with him when his time is up. Only one such rune can be created at a time.
*Takes about 3-5 minutes to draw.

I'd put that as 1-1.5 minors (yeah, even with the restrictions). Among other things it'd allow him to visit his wife whenever once he's found her again, which I believe was part of the intent. Since we don't know for sure how blacksmithing is going to work.. I guess I'd put that at .5-1 which would make everything fit into 5 minors. Maybe he'd be making out like a bandit when crafting is finalized, maybe not.
Reply
#9
Made the needed changes. I guess I'll take my chances with Blacksmithing. If it doesn't work out, I can always do something else.
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#10
Alright, with those changes, approved!
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