NEITHER LIVING ..
.. NOR DEAD

RIDDLE: I HAVE DIED MANY DEATHS BUT ONLY HAVE ONE GRAVE. WHAT AM I

GUIDELINES.

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should death be so sweet that i

CRAVE IT SO?

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NAME. Nikodemus. The only name given to him - not taken - yet the one he is best known for.. The surname Desalvar he affixed to the end out of necessity rather than need for belonging.OTHER NAMES. Born Octavian and unwilling to divulge as much, the name bearing personal, dear connotation for him. Eris Valder he named himself out of pride, for blasphemy, and Matteo Abiatti - out of curiosity, for the academic world. He was light-kissed King Lucius for a short, prosperous, legendary lifetime and never again - for he could only be him alongside brilliant sworn knight Adiel. Nik Johanson is a brand for the modern ages. The Undying he was known as among inhuman circles, The Giver - among human. Fearful werecreatures still call him wolfslayer. To most he is simply The Necromancer.

Though a witch in his own right, M A G I C was never in Nikodemus' nature until he made it so. Born a human with such little talent or hope to gain power, not even an ascension to monstrosity netted him many abilities. It wasn't until the creation of a metaphysical phylactery did the world of magic open up to him. Namely, while he still could not learn spellcasting like those with an inborn gift, he could pluck their power from them and, through the creation of a unique new system, make using it possible. A well-abhorred vulture among witches and sorcerers, Nikodemus shamelessly studied and stole from divine, esoteric and arcane, only to transform it into his own version of magic - a bastardized, sullied translation. Unholy. Unnatural. Undying.

THE GIFT.

Phylactery, grimoire, fountain of immortality. Paid for with blood, death and the lifeforce of hundreds, the Gift is the very middleground of Nikodemus' body, soul and magic. A catch-all binding sygil, separated from his vessel and spiderwebbing its ichor tendrils to hold all unstable parts of him together - the capricious spirit, the fallible flesh and the power he was never meant to yield.

F I R S T it is the keeper of his immortality. The reason he is called an eater. And that, he is, at much grander scale than he could ever previously achieve. All living things marked with the gift - by ways of a small black fingerprint, inconspicuous by any means - find their souls irreparably caught in its black webbings and at Nikodemus' mercy. When his vessel is killed or suffers any death, one of his Gifted pay the price of its regeneration with their lifeforce. Likewise, dying on other terms doesn't net anyone freedom either. Once a soul is marked for taking, it is his. And once it is free of the flesh, it follows his call. A far cry from his humble beginnings, when Nikodemus had to wait for death to sever the soul of its mortal coil, he is now capable of far more and worse.S E C O N D it is a repository for power. The flesh is feeble, especially one as piteously human-adjacent as his own, and his Eater soul, bottomless yet limited by physical trappings, could never quite have its fill before. Now unbound, it can hold thousands other souls within its void, from the mundane to the grand deiform.T H I R D it is a tool for magic. The strands of ichor (of ink) the gift manifests, Nikodemus has learned to take and twist to his liking. It is a wrestle, a reshaping of his very tether (and body alongside), a vulnerable and fragile affair, but moulding strands of magic into forms that serve him - and himself into forms that wield them - requires painful changes. His runes, as he lovingly calls them, is each a perversion of power he stole and blackened into his own design. Their manifestation is physical. The ink permeates every facet of him, externalized through animated, moving blots of it spanning his body and assuming shapes and runes at will. His very own witch's grimoire, writen on his skin.

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''NATURAL'' ABILITIES. No more inborn than his runic magic, these talents he nevertheless gained before the conceptualization of The Gift.◇ CONSUMPTION. - The power to absorb another living thing's soul, store it in his own and use it as a resource for his immortality or magic. Likewise, soak up energy from the environment like a sponge. Long ago unable to stow a soul away by force unless its connection to the body was naturally severed, he's now capable of far more and worse than that. This is the nature of an Eater soul, that which he became by fighting tooth and claw. Through it were birthed all other magicks he ever has and will possess.◇ DETECTION. - He can sniff out of sorts energy, knows when someone isn't quite human. Souls are like prints, call him a wildlife specialist. Some notable exceptions apply.◇ EARTHLY MAGICS. - A poor imitation of the power over growth and bloom and soil he once held. He's since lost his deep connection to the earth in exchange for toying with death. Nothing answers to his touch unless it is dead first. The forest turns him away. All living things repell him if they can. His grasp over the element is horribly weak.

MANUFACTURED ABILITIES. Much in the way a mage may craft a new charm, he manipulates the moving ink he possesses and creates runes with various uses. Always pro-bono, of course. He painfully rearranged his metaphysical essence to create The Gift, he must stirr it again for each enhancement he makes.◇ IMBUEMENT. - Enchanting select items with special qualities.◇ HEALING - Mostly on himself, with a few exceptions. Truth is, you wouldn't want him tinkering with your hurt bits anyway, he's hardly got a miracle touch. Like all things him, his 'stitchwork' is eerie. His fingers have learned to cauterize more than heal, speed up coagulation and plug wounds with dead cells that make for awful scars and even more awful infections. His blackened right hand is his own work of art. Yikes.◇ NECROMANCY - Raising the dead in the days of old was something of a drama. This one's particularly taxing, what with the injuries he has to sustain for each body reanimated. He uses fresh blood (his own) to coax the dead out of rigor mortis and as long as the 'donor' walks, they do, too. And keep in mind, he can animate them, not bring them back to life. Can't exactly pluck their long-departed soul out of the Beyond for the whole set now. A mindless, soulless horde following a deadman's whims. Whatever else did you expect?◇ RECALL - This rune, etched into certain items or surfaces with his ink, will magnetically draw them to him when activated. Likewise, depending on the item's weight (if much heavier) may drag him to them instead, working as a form of shorthand transport.◇ BEHEMOTH - Per the name's suggestion, one of his most powerful, all-encompassing and laborious runes in his roster. An intricate, complex web of ink spanning him wrist to ankle to forehead and, along the measure of it, granting his physical form strenght and durability to a supernatural degree.

TALE OF THE NECROMANCER.

full story here

He is born in the ancient little town of Krilnei wherein his powerful witch 'mother', Septima, ranks high in influence and by blood, but low in reputation. Last of a lineage of men and women who died upon the birth of their heirs, with all other attempts at ilk ending in stillbirths, she is first to produce a healthy child - a little daughter, Avita - without giving her life up for it. Instead of prosperity, as the villagers expect, alongside the little girl's birth a great calamity befalls Krilnei. Septima's a widow by the time she falls pregnant again of an unknown man and thusly finds herself swiftly excommunicated. A divine prediction makes its rounds and fearmongers her people. She's copulated with a beast, they say, or worse yet, some fae or trickster or other. The child is a demon incarnate, prophesied to bring ruin and damnation; a curse in the flesh. In the dead of night they adjoin for council, agree to attempt salvation and send an armed man into her home. He never returns. She does die months later, bearing a son into this world. Hearsay has it she delivered calmly, steeled for the end as if she knew it awaited her. They say she stopped before the final toil and uttered a cursed name for the child, now lost to time. With his first cry, she fell, breathless and still. Unbeknownst to all, she closed her eyes as Septima forever.. and next opened them as the newborn baby boy in the wetnurse's arms.What was done could not be undone. Krilnei's laws prohibit the harm of a child and, much as the babe has proven to be trouble, he is far removed from the little town rather than killed, and taught in the way of ancient elemental magics. He knows of the prophecies and hears the whispers, but pays them no mind except to stroke his ego with. He's the spitting image of his mother at 15 and carries Septima's rotten disposition and all of her grudges as proudly as she once did, despite never meeting her. He had stolen her life, they murmur; taken it in entirety for himself. They have named him Nikodemus, for victory and prosperity, but he schemes, exploits and harms as if they hadn't. Truly, they had not. Much as he tries to avoid his fate, he is born an eater soul, and that is what he becomes eight days after his 16th birthday. In the middle of healing a dying man - an attempt to prevent his end - the boy feels the soul leave the body, reaches out... and catches it. For this transgression and soon many more he is hung a year later alongside his sister. He survives. She does not. So begins Nikodemus' quest for immortality and power - to defy death and eventually even rule it, in the name of all he'd lost. Krilnei burns and dies by his hand and from its ashes he fashions himself The Gift.

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TALE OF THE EATER.

It begins in early antiquity, with the lost town of Krilnei and Nikodemus' mother Septima ― a shrewd woman by all means. Even back then, the history of her secret little settlement of magically gifted folk is already long and varied. Hand-picked by her great grandfather, crafted into a society by her grandmother, brought to heel by her father and, finally, overseen by her, as the last by succession, it is a product of her family and the people within it - her subjects in all but name, for her lack of title in the hierarchy. She is no High or Great anything, but the power of her kin to peer into the very soul of man makes her far more irreplaceable than any honorific would suggest, and the mystery of her origin and abilities is enough to bring any naysayer to fearful obeisance.Like all of her predecessors, her birth coincides with the former leader's untimely death - a circumstance her people have rumoured to be a curse on the bloodline. Her father, ailing and weak-minded with pain, had been taken to spend his last days in the deep wood, and sure enough, a week later Septima was ritualistically carried out of it by his wife, a woman long ago sworn to secrecy. She never breathes a word of finding the babe next to the torn, hollow-chested corpse of her husband, sat upright and feasting on his rancid flesh, nor of the way she had been carefully and intelligently considered that day by the eerily predatorial eyes of a two-day old. In honor of her husband's last wish she names the daughter she never birthed 'Septima'. As tradition instructs, Septima is tested on her soul sight in infancy and after, by virtue of geniture, is crowned with a wreath of young straksa leaves, to denote heirdom as leader when she comes of age. She waits 16 years to be crowned again with araksa, leaves of the Hollowed tree, and, like many before her, steps into her duties with practiced ease. She commands authority just as fearfully as her father. Suddenly it is as if he had never left. ―― He had not.

Septima is the last in line to inherit not only the title of her predecessors, but the soul they had all carried in turn, as well. It is an old thing. Powerful and hungry. A breed of creature gifted with the wretched ability to consume other souls and sustain its own magic through them ― an Eater, who had, like all predators, adapted to survive rather violently. Under threat of mortal expiration before its time, it had long ago taken to creating new vessels to inhabit. It would form fresh young flesh within itself like a tumor, then shed the old skin as a serpent does, in a gruesome process few would call something as savory as 'rebirth'. Or birth, for that matter. Though it would, indeed, re-enter the world as a babe again, with poor recollection of its previous life and a feeble, fragile mind, it would wisen unnaturally fast and even be born with certain instincts, muscle memories and uncanny intuitions intact. Within a few decades, it would remember as well.

But to twist one's form so artfully around sustaining such a beastly soul comes at the expense of certain biological compatibilities. The Soul and its vessels could no longer successfully mate with humans. Throughout all its various iterations, with countless wives and husbands, it had produced nothing but ill, misshapen or stillborn offspring. None had lived to childhood. Septima has prospects for neither marriage nor children by the time she is of age and takes no husband for years to come, well past old maidenhood, further incensed by the return of memories and old, painful losses past. When a new settler group, driven to seek shelter and safety away from mundane civilization, joins their little town, she marries out of pure necessity ― to lead by example and encourage the introduction of new blood and magic amongst her people. Her husband is a good, simple man of no known origin named Tibor and, though he is pitied for wedding a woman whose only ilk would draw air upon her death, he still grows fond of Septima and she of him. He gives her a daughter five years in. And despite being unanticipated and uncelebrated, born ill and premature and expected dead before long like dozens of her poor half-siblings, Avita ― desperately named for life ― lives.She lives through infancy and well into childhood. Though prone to illness and slow to develop, Avita grows stronger and older yet with less and less complications, doted on by an entire town as its pride and joy ― a living symbol of prosperity. She is never crowned as Septima's successor, however. Septima forbids it. The burden of leadership ― the trecherous web of her own design ― can grace only her shoulders and those of her next iteration. Avita, her small, precious miracle, is to be spared it, predestined to nothing but happiness; set to inherit, of all that Septima has built, only that which she may wish to. But inheritance by blood is a different matter and Avita is her mother's daughter ― powerful and volatile, both in abundance. It doesn't take long for moods to sour in their settlement. Several townsfolk die of illness during that time, Tibor included much to Septima's utter devastation, and talks of an omen begin. The town is plunged into deep mourning. The air hangs heavy. Something ill-spirited lives among them. Septima feels it too - the swell of destructive power that grows within Avita by the day, the terrifying emptiness that denotes an Eater. She can do little to mask it and nothing to stop it from manifesting, not even with the help of trusted, powerful confidants who work tirelessly to reel in and stabilize the girl. Unlike Septima, who can only claim a soul and consume it once it is free of the mortal coil, Avita naturally draws force from every living thing like she is owed it. As recompense, all earthen things she touches bloom and flower under her hand if she wishes them to.It isn't long before someone bears witness to her potential. And dies for it. A suitor of Septima's is the first casualty, driven to pursue her by the promise of power and puissant progeny now the bloodline curse is dispelled. Yet ultimately doomed by virtue of proximity to little Avita. She misses her dear father and thinks poorly of the would-be intruder, so it takes him but one little misstep alone before she makes quickwork of him. He is left half a man when she is done - half-alive and half-mad, left to the servants who drag whatever remains of him elsewhere. Septima hurries to orchestrate his death away from her home and to secure her and her daughter's innocence, but finds he's died by his own hand in holding. She's told he has left behind a warning as his last words. They are to be kept secret. Nevertheless, of all the ramblings his broken mind could barely string together, one still manages to exit the confidentiality of the few to witness him die: 'The eighth will be the end of all.' Pronounced a profecy and its speaker a seer, the utterance of a madman makes its covert way throughout the town. It isn't difficult to glean who it condemns. Avita is only six when, unbeknownst to her, the townsfolk deem her a curse on Krilnei in hushed whispers. But where many see doom, Septima - once she comes into the knowledge of the quiet rumour - sees opportunity. The eighth it will be...To save her darling daughter from suspicion and to ensure her peaceful life among the townsfolk, Septima seeks to fulfil the profecy herself. Her grand scheme would leave Avita orphaned, and at such a tender age, but it would absolve her of the town's misgivings and buy her time to spend mastering her power under the tutelage of several trusted mentors whom Septima has gathered in preparation for her own departure. The little girl's care is delegated to them as well. With all her affairs in order, Septima settles down, puts her ear to the town's grapevine and begins the process of her own rebirth. She makes sure to show faux signs of pregnancy suspiciously soon. Regardless of timing, she is with child and without husband, so she soon falls into ill repute. Her people are restless and fearful, perturbed to watch their cattle die and their neighbours fall to illness, prepared to take up pitchforks at the slightest provocation, and she decisively abuses that uncertainty. She's made sure to keep the traitor who'd let the profecy slip close to herself and, to them, she shares the name of her future babe. As she'd hoped, it proves the last nail in the coffin.The rumors begin. She's copulated with some beast, they say, some trickster or fae or devil. She's struck a dangerous pact to conceive Avita and this child is the wretched payment. The curse on her family has come to a head, with her chosen to end it in blood. Whatever the speculation, one thing is for certain - the child growing in her belly the true source of the scourge that has befallen their settlement, fated to bring ruin and damnation were it to be born. By then it would be too late, for the laws of Krilnei forbid the harm of a child. In the dead of night Septima's fearmongered enemies adjoin for secret council, agree to attempt salvation and send an armed man into her home. He never returns. She does die months later, bearing her new vessel into the world. By then sick and tired, near victim of four attempts on her life and separated from her darling Avita by force, she calmly orders the babe cut out of her and names it her successor. At last, she closes her eyes as Septima forever... and next opens them as the newborn baby boy in the wetnurse's shaking arms.His name is Octavian. 'The Eighth'.The scourge has been born. And he is tiny and fragile, yet eerily silent like his mother before him had been. Intuitive as well, personally picking who he wishes to hold him by fussing terribly in the wrong hands. Few dare touch him as it stands. For a thing so small, he inspires fear even among the ranks of Septima's trusted. He is left unharmed, as the law dictates, but the town condemns him quickly. He is not crowned with straksa leaves, nor allowed to live in the town leader's home, with Avita. A servant woman is entrusted with him, relegated to the edge of town. He is even stripped of his own cursed name, unworthy of that morsel of cultural belonging. He is not of their people and Krilnei refuses to claim him. They call a passing foreigner forward, a woman from another land, and bid her name the child kindly - for goodness and benignity, so that he may live up to it. She takes one look into quiet little Octavian's clever blue eyes and speaks a name, unaware of how many would one day whisper it in fear.NICODEMUS.

At last , the scourge had been born, as prophecied. And though he is yet but a babe, assumedly powerless to do much, the townsfolk are reluctant to forget the devastation he'd caused from his mother's womb. Thus, precautions are taken early to contain the ill omen of his very existence hanging over all their heads. But for the law prohibiting the harm of a child, his reign of terror would've ended upon his first drawn breath. Alas. Stripped of name, title and inheritance, he can only be shunned as an outsider and cast out as such, to rid them of proximity. They burden a lowborn wet nurse named Galla with the boy's rearing, relegating her to the depths of the forest beyond, and, in that, ensuring Nikodemos would be nurtured on nothing but loathing alone. And, oh, does she loathe him.He knows neither a full belly nor a kind word from that day forth. His infancy and toddlerhood are neglectful, pitiful affairs entirely devoid of love, but he makedoes. A skinny, malnourished yet eerily intelligent thing, Nikodemos proves difficult to discipline even in his youth, much to Galla's chagrin. The poor woman tries to rebuke the wickedness out of him by any means she knows how, but earns in return nothing but unbearably loud fussing or, more uncannily, baleful silence. By contrast, whenever Hortensius the Elder of late Septima's most trusted visits, little Nikodemos greets him as a friend and coos at him eagerly the few things he knows how to say. His first word is "eight", his second is "Avita". He terrifies Galla each day with how much he knows that he shouldn't.Tragically, he knows too well how to stay alive. A boy of three, he traverses the forest like he remembers its very bowels. Galla lets him play around fast rivers and wander too far into bushes and she hastens home alone each time, hoping for dark trees and hungry wolves to rid her of Nikodemos, yet spare her from the burden of sullying her hands with his fate. But the eerie child steps over brooks carefully and finds his way back without fail, small fingers clutched around the grotesquely twisted necks of vipers, and Galla weeps bitterly over her misfortune. He walks all the way to town one day. Far from lost, his little feet carry him along familiar cobblestone and thatched roofs, quickening resolutely towards home. Towards that large pale cottage with its wood-whittled facáde where he knows, by some divine assurance, that he will find Avita. She's grown much by now. A girl of nine and the leader's heir, she's nevertheless developed the grace and gentleness to effortlessly return kindness in kind when a strange little boy toddles over into her little garden and hugs her skirts fiercely. He proves a stubborn, loud thing when the sentries approach to wrench him off of her and alert the town's leader of his wretched presence. Out of what was once Septima's home emerges none other than Hortensius to bid him leave. He is met with the coldest blue eyes he's ever seen on a child. And he reads bitter betrayal in them.As a child, Nikodemos sets about to reclaiming his stolen birthright. Seeing little point in seeking help from the usurper elders who'd wasted no time installing one of their own as leader and leaving him to squalor, he takes matters into his own hands. On his roughly estimated fifth birthday, he visits his old mentor Otho. A respectable, prolific elderly man, once upon a time Otho had taught Septima the art of conquering the earthen element and, if Nikodemos had his way, would teach her 'child' as well. His stubbornness in denouncing the cursed boy lasts but a short fortnight of finding eerie Nikodemos at his door each morning uttering of things long past and memories he has no business having before Otho caves out of fear and agrees. The troublesome little thing is permitted only to watch the other children be mentored from a distance and not allowed to interfere, but it is enough for a start. He is diligent enough and woefully becomes Otho's second best student. His first is Avita.WIP

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CODE: RED

In from dermis, out through skin. Supinate. Meet Desalvar MD, an emerging miracle worker in the trauma surgery field, standout for his quick hands, quicker thinking and notable disregard for protocol. His clumsy start as a pity-hire undesirable with few, rather angry credentials long behind him, nowadays he enjoys a limelit position as star trauma surgeon of a high-traffic emergency department, in high demand, with none of the humility he should've kept in tow.

OVERVIEW

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PHYSICAL

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MENTAL

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he likes to say he was born an oprhan, regardless of how many technicalities are involved in that statement. he has a mother for all of two weeks before complications from his birth take a final toll on vittoria's heart condition. his aunt never forgets it through the whole sixteen years she raises him. his father is never present. he's tested and diagnosed with congenital cardiomyopathy when he's barely six months old. all told, nicodemo's life begins in utter chaos and continues much in the same vein.he's gained the reputation of the 'fragile kid' and battling that title with every fibre of his tiny being by the time he meets antonín cainhurst. they are both ten years old and it is hatred at first sentence. day one he gets a pair of bruised ribs and leaves the little pipsqueak a bitemark on his wrist to remember. nico may not be allowed physically demanding activities, but for antonín he makes an exception and a habitual string of secret scuffles begins. from it, like moss, grows the hardiest friendship of his life to date.the rest of his teenhood is spent sustaining mutual tolerance with his aunt and the rest of his early 20s - travelling and misusing his time for pointless fun, hedonism and, soon enough, self-destruction around the time doctors discover ventricular changes during his regular heart checkups. living a countdown instead of a life wasn't in the cards for him, he decides, and throws himself head first into enjoying whatever time he has left. he's in fifth year of a medical scholarship at the time, but between missing class to get high and getting high to pay attention in class, his grades drop and he fails all his yearly exams. by the time his worsening drug addiction comes to a near lethal bend, he has neigh nothing and no one to his name. worst of all, he's on the verge of losing his best friend.rehab's tough, but necessary. rebuilding's even tougher. if nothing else, at least staying clean earns him Antonín's tentative, careful trust and that means the world to him. he returns to university for his final year, gets a job to pay for it and enters therapy. he doesn't touch any substance again, one of the lucky few... his journey on the right track leads to his faithful meeting to one Ms Laura Nordin, volunteer at DAA meetings, and soon their whirldwind situationship, not the first nor the last of Nico's life, leads to the conception of a child. his life's well on its way to change, but now it has to go a whole lot faster. and it changes indeed. he welcomes a daughter home before long and devastation follows. premature little infant Avita is the third in line to inherit her daddy's familial heart condition, and she has it worst by far. now graduated, Nik hurries to provide all he can to her - amasses a modest sum of money, pays for her medical expenses and treatment, signs her up to the heart recepient list, begs Antonín to clear his record and moves back to France with her in tow.

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SPIDER-EYED MAN

He is Nikodemus Desalvar - head bioengineer and neuroscientist at an esteemed corporation. There's little life history of note preceeding this achievement, so he keeps all mentions of it scarse. As far as anybody without top access knows, he's simply an intelligent man with a humble background and a sick daughter. For a decade going forward, neither of those facts change, the latter to the irony of the former. Avita's degenerative disease progresses and so does Nikodemus' increasingly desperate reconnaissance into the benefits of bionanotech on the human organism.Until internal investigation into patient safety risk uncovers seven confirmed cases of unauthorized foreign-origin nanites left in unsuspecting customers and raises suspicion of dozens more. All linked to his name and an experimental neurotech program long ago vetoed in its preliminary testing stages. By then, Nikodemus has long fled. Caught wind of the checkup early, he unearths his entire life and runs far, his daughter, all her medical equipment and a hoard of illegally obtained technological patents in tow.He lays low as more of his transgressions come to light.Life is tough in the city's shady underbelly. The funds he's got and the research he's done thus far only last so long before he has to supplement them. He cruises by on fixing up the careless and desperate - those willing to engage the questionable services of a man who conceals his face and identity - few and far inbetween. Business is measly at first. To those that don't know him, he's an oddball new ripperdoc with no credentials to his name and little examples of work to stand on. To the scarse trusted few that do - he's still the man who brainwashed seven people under the table.

His work gains notoriety slowly but surely. Occasionally painfully. In a weighted-risk venture, he tentatively implements neuro-nanotech into his services - new, experimental technology only offered to the half-doomed and tight-lipped as last resort. It's the perfect opportunity to test patents and treatments - and get paid for it. A mistake on his part, in retrospect. With more powerful customers - ones who can afford the fees - comes danger. He's already a man with a flimsy identity running shady practices, stood on terribly precarious ground, so it takes little effort to topple his ruse. He weathers only 3 years in what he considers careful hiding before one of his trusted rats him out to the corpos and gets him thrown in maximum security prison.Months later, he's bailed out by one Antonín Cainhurst of Cainhurst Co. and the rest is history.

BASICS

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• NAME.  Nikodemus Desalvar. becomes Nikodemus Cainhurst much later after marrying Antonín Cainhurst to gain political immunity.

• CALLED.  Nik, Niko. known as the Necromancer in underground circles for his neuroregenerative services. goes by Matteo/Matt during his short-lived run from the law.

• AGE.  early 30s at the time he officially gains 'criminal at large' status. playable from 20s onward.

• PRONOUNS.  he/him

• ORIENTATION.  panromantic pansexual

• PARTNER.  Antonín Cainhurst, heir of the Cainhurst corporation. firm romantic partner despite the political convenience of their marriage.

• FAMILY.  Avita Desalvar (daughter), Antonín Cainhurst (life partner)

• PROFESSION.  a miscellany of positions. bioengineering with an emphasis on neuroscience - a profession he legally holds for an entire decade along a smattering of job positions around Cainhurst Co. before he hightails it out of there with the label 'criminal medical malpractice' stamped in his credentials file and a warrant on his head. skates by as a ripperdoc to save face in underground circles (and justify the oodles of money he spends on biomedical equipment). instated back as scientist in the Cainhurst corporation under Antonín Cainhurst's branch after his bail.

• CRIMINAL RECORD.  medical malpractice, negligent manslaughter, first degree murder, second degree murder, bribery, theft

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APPEARANCE

• HAIR.  black and thick. holds a strong wave. length varies. has gone through several hairstyles.

• EYES.  deep set and slanted at the outer edges. dark blue. replaced rather early in his neuroscientist career for the sake of practicality. subject to an unnerving number of self-made advancements while he's on the run.

• BODY.  lithe musculature, average height. warm toned, tans easily.

• TATTOOS.  various. WIP.

• PIERCINGS.  lobes, upper lobe, industrial, helix. nostril, septum. snake bites. tongue stud. nipples. bellybutton. rotates them accordingly.

• VOICE.  rich and deep, pronounced vocal fry.

• ENHANCEMENTS.  nikodemus has gone through several replacements and adjustments, initially self-inflicted then professionally redone.

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Eris was born an Aglarondian in the capital Veltalar, child of simbarch mother Septima and her magicless lover. Left an orphan through his mother perishing in the brewing thayan conflict and his father taking the high road, he was scooped up by a simbarch and accepted into apprenticeship early even without any apparent natural spellcasting abilities. As favour to late Septima. He imagines it stung that much more to those who reared him as their own to see him turn down the dark path of necromancy and depart for Thay, wizard tome in hand. Perhaps they should have thought better before denying him a place at the Simbarch Council.It's years later that he discovers with no small amount of spiteful triumph that dormant celestial blood runs through his veins. By then, his daughter Avita is born an aasimar and he has no home or belonging to offer to her, on the run from many foes for all his transgressions against the forces of life.Avita's birth is a rather peculiar event. Eris meets her mother Larael while wearing a different name and a different reputation. To her, he is Nikodemus - charming and entertaining as he ever was, with wit and bite to match, but with his crimes shed from the resume. They share a whirlwind romance for close to half a year until Eris' true identity is revealed and Larael angrily flees, betrayed. He does not blame her, for necromancers and paladins are not meant to be, besides. Prepared to put it all behind him in a few months' time of pining, he doesn't expect anything else to come of it.Until a brilliant pale deva arrives at his doorstep eight months later with a small bundle in his arms and tells him he has a daughter. Her name is Avita, he is informed. The deva - Amant - has named her so during his days' journey to Eris. Summoned by Larael in a time of great need and danger to whisk infant Avita away, he had promised to deliver her to her father. It is there, in the middle of exile and prosecution, in a dark old necrotic-soaked hovel, that Eris is handed his celestial daughter. She cries immediatelly in his arms.The road to having a family is a smarting, bumpy affair - from finding a better haunt for himself, a baby girl and a stubborn deva unwilling to leave her care to him, to earning his own daughter's trust and love, to discovering Larael's possible killers were enemies of his own hunting for all he held dear, to raising a child when he's none the wiser - he hurts and he regrets and is at great loss and anguish of what to do. At the end, he simply tries his best. And does it again and again until trust and love grows in his home and Avita and Amant become family.

NAME Eris Desalvar
CALLED Nikodemus, Matteo, Necromancer of Thay
RACE Human. Aglarondian mother with Damaran roots.
PRONOUNS he/him
AGE 64. can be played any age from his twenties onward. obtained artificial immortality around age 51.
CLASS Wizard, originally a student of the School of Transmutation under simbarch guidance. Switched to School of Necromancy. Dabbles in mysticism, with prevalent interest in the Immortal Discipline.
ORIENTATION unencumbered with preference. poly tendencies. has had a consistent life partner since his mid 30s.
PARTNER Amant (deva)
FAMILY Avita Desalvar (daughter, aasimar), Larael Nordin (Avita's mother, human, presumed dead)
PET Nehebkau, a venomous viper he acquired at a time after Avita left home.
LANGUAGES native aglarondian, common, damaranHAIR Waist-length, holding a strong wave. Black, with salt and pepper streaks all throughout.
EYES Deep set and slanted at the outer edges. Dark blue.
BODY Lithe musculature most commonly, average height. Warm toned, tans easily.
TATTOOS Various arcane symbols painted with moving ink he uses as focus for his spells. A sprout of flowers above his heart as tribute to Avita. Amant's name written along his lower spine. Large snake back piece.
PIERCINGS Lobes, upper lobe, industrial, helix. Nostril, septum. Snake bites. Nipples. Bellybutton. Never wears them all at once.
VOICE Rich and deep, pronounced vocal fry.
HEALTH Naturally hearty disposition, he's rarely been sick, but a sprained right hip in his youth has progressed to a limp nowadays and his vision has begun slowly blurring. No glasses can help the condition, though immortality has thankfully staved off its worsening.
STYLE Dark and gothic if he can help it. Favours blacks, purples and heavy embroidery. Always, always maximalist in some capacity. Tends to carry an ornate cane which doubles as a mage staff, and a pair of glasses that help him little.

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