Daraskal, Human WizardAppearance: Daraskal stands at 5’9’’ and weights in at 123 pounds. Daraskal is very weak looking, having little to no muscle mass on any parts of his body. He has a bony, narrow face with an almost constant sneer over his lips. His black hair is slickly combed backwards hanging down to the top of his neck. He wears very simple unadorned black robes with a hood pulled down over his face hiding it in shadow.
History Daraskal was born of an illegitimate union between a commoner woman of no note with dubious business practices, and a minor arcanist of barely minimum skill. As such, the start of his life was by no means nice or comfortable, even by the standards of Shade. He lived a life of the unloved, never cared for, never looked over. It was a wonder that he even survived the first days of his life, with how abusive his single present parent was. His only saving grace was the few scraps she fed him of mostly decaying food, and an immune system that was structured like one of a god’s. Despite all this, while his body might not have taken well to the environment, Daraskal’s mind developed much higher then any would imagine of one born in such horrible conditions.
For prosper his mind did in this environment. With the needs of the body neglected, the haven of the mind was the only subject that the child named Daraskal could find safety and comfort in. The first memory that Daraskal can recall, is that of himself at barely the age of two years old. He sat outside in the freezing cold of the realm of shadows waiting for his mother to finish her ‘business’ inside the building and to come to pick him up, and hopefully feed him for the first time in days. Curling up into almost a ball Daraskal covered himself with the few rags he had and stared at the pavement of the ground of Shade. He noticed the pattern, he saw deeply throughout the uniformly layed throughout the city, and then he saw beyond that. He looked to the buildings, to the devices, the magic and he saw the connections, he saw where there was the support, he saw how everything relied on each other. He saw the world in its view as it truly was, an almost prophetic vision, something that not many would happen upon in a lifetime, and something neither has he ever again.
From that point onward, Daraskal has had an almost crystal perfect remembrance of his life, every detail, every pain, every word he has spoken he remembers it all, but for his tale, the story starts again when he had aged upon the time of nine years old. It was then that he learned his first spell, nothing more then a cantrip, but a spell all the same. He was able to do this from an intristic knowledge, a study, a careless happenstance where an arcanist of low skill and measure left his spell book open as he went to get something. Daraskal stole a quick glance at the book memorizing the lines and curves, the letters and symbols, finding the very essence of the spell itself. He kept his knowledge a secret, he kept this spell in his mind for four years never casting it, always savoring, always knowing it running it over and over in his mind memorizing ever single aspect of it so that he would always be able to regain it, the simple spell of reading magic, that’s all it was, but it was magic all the same.
The first time he cast this spell, was when the routine tests for magical aptitude were done for him. He demonstrated his knowledge, and his control over magic, over the simplest spell an arcanist could learn, but that, and the rest of his abilities was enough to ensure his destiny. He finally could leave the status he was born into, and ascend into the place his abilities could take him. Daraskal was now housed, fed, even taught like he had never had before. He was an asset to his society, something to be prized treasured, and used, which he did not realize at the time.
Daraskal studied, everything from magic to nature, the arcane to the common. He spent years at a time devoted to pursuing one path of knowledge, sometimes even at some expense to his magical studies, one of the few reasons he has been delayed in aquiring all the arcane arts that one of his intelligence should have long ago. Daraskal is also a strange Shaduvar in other ways, for one he has absolutely no political ambition. He simply does not care at all whether he is the high prince, or a commoner, as long as he can continue his studies, oftentimes to the expense of others pain, or even death. Daraskal’s life was mostly uneventful for years and years, till as soon as eight months ago.
At that time, Daraskal was assigned to safeguard a caravan on a gathering mission out in the plane of shadow. It wasn’t a very important task, and as such Daraskal was the only true arcanist that was part of the caravan. The caravan was on its return trip from the plane to go back to Shade and it held some objects and items in it that were dubious and ones that they were not sent out to collect. For example, there was the egg of a shadow dragon amongst them.
Of course, the egg had a mother, one that was very much angered by the stealing of her egg. She was still young and weak as far as dragonkind would go, but she was confident in her abilities and thus deemed it a reasonable action to attack the caravan and regain her egg. The moment the dragon attacked, Daraskal responded with a stunning combination of spells felling the dragon right out of the sky, minimizing what huge damage it had already done. With a quick gesture and a word Daraskal had commanded the other member’s of the carvan to come and they knocked the dragon unconscious. They received quite a tidy sum for it and the egg, which Daraskal’s minimal share comprises the bulk of his fortune.
In deference to his deed, Daraskal was chosen and turned into a Shade, for he showed very great potential. Currently, after Shade has come back into the material plane Daraskal has fallen into somewhat disfavor of Abylon for his actions of ignoring of Shar and not even paying lip service as most would do. He has been assigned to take a faux message to a group of Shaduvar’s in an expedition…
EDIT:
5. What are the character’s moral, ethical, and/or religious beliefs?
Put quite simply, he really doesn't care. He has little to no morals, though he restrains himself usually, bother him to slaying a whole nation for what he needs would be akin to stepping on an ant to him. His religious beliefs are little to nil, he of course knows that there are gods, but he choses not to worship any of them, and simply can't be bothered to care about it.
7. What kind of relationships does the character currently have? Any close friends or bitter enemies? Describe the history of the relationship.
If the dragon he had felled is still alive, it might very well consider him to be a very bitter enemy, for subjecting her to slavery and helping with the stealing of her egg.
Besides that he has mostly left most alone, making no enemies, friends or otherwise. Although recently his lack of faith had drawn attention to Abylon
12. What are the character’s short-term goals? What sort of adventures is s(he) looking for? What sort of rewards does (s)he care about? Treasure, fame, information, personal power, political power, doing good works?
Daraskal's goals, and sort of rewards he would be interested in can be summed up into two major things.
Arcane might, and knowledge.
Those are the most valuable things to him, though of course he does not mind treasure, and is only indifferent to fame, and political power.
15. What sort of NPCs would you like your character to interact with in the near future? Would you like to meet a mentor, a patron, a follower or companion, interesting allies, interesting enemies, interesting monsters, political movers and shakers, people who need your help, people of your race, people with similar beliefs to you, or something different
I would like my character to interact with other mages that seek knowledge as he do, and other mages of higher or lower rank so he can discuss thesis, theories, and else with them along with many other arcane subjects.