Stats, info, combat, etc

[legis_vox]

Name: Timur
Age: 21 (ish)

Physical Traits: Medium height, powerful but compact build. Takes good care of his appearance when he can, stays clean-shaven, maintains his equipment. His stance and body language are all about confidence and authority, and he has a soldier's reflexes -- scanning rooms before he enters them, checking out sudden movements or sounds, that kind of thing.

Personality Traits/Notes for Psychics: Timur's confident, pragmatic and used to being, basically, bronze-age fantasy Judge Dredd; he's been handing out summary judgements and leading armies since he was sixteen (or so). He's got a tendency to take the lead, but he's also willing to follow or observe if the situation calls for it. Has a glare that can stop veteran killers in their tracks, but rarely uses it. Extremely intelligent, to a probably-superhuman extent as of endgame, with a natural affinity for investigation, tactics and magic. His mind works extremely quickly and he's generally juggling several possible courses of action at once.

Actually getting inside his mind is difficult, though not impossible, and he's shown himself able to resist some extremely potent psychic assaults with mental discipline, force of will and general magical acumen. Passive reading won't trigger him to actively resist, though if you act on that information he'll probably notice fast. In theory he can develop some mental magic/shields based on party interactions and he has a couple of applicable Sigils that he could make work, but it hasn't been a priority.

Abilities: Basically split up into a couple of major sections: sigil magic, reputation powers and Edicts. (I'm sorry, this is super, super long).

Sigil Magic: This is the world's basic magic system. Once an Archon of a concept has risen to power, mages can access that concept through use of a sigil representing that Archon; the sigil of the Archon of Fire lets you cast fire spells, etc. Each core sigil manifests in a number of different ways as determined by the additional sigils the caster adds to it; these extra sigils seem to have been in some way created by/bound up with an Ancient Precursor Civilization about which we know buggerall. Timur, at this point, knows the eleven game-available sigils and a ton of modifiers. His insane Lore skill means that he can basically put together whatever combination he wants. The sigils are, basically:

* Fire: fire damage (obviously) and Burn status. Tend to have bigger AoEs than most other sigils. Timur almost uses the Sigil of Frostfire with this sigil, which causes it to do Fire/Cold damage (whichever is more effective) and also freeze the target.
* Frost: cold damage (also obviously) and Frozen status. Higher-than-normal damage. Again, Timur almost always uses the Sigil of Frostfire.
* Lightning: lightning damage (hurr durr) and Stun.
* Atrophy: debuffs of various types -- stat penalties, silence/weaken, root, etc depending on the particular spell. Often used with the Sigil of Bleeding which does exactly what you expect.
* Illusion: small amounts of irresistable damage with disabling debuffs, or strong defensive spells. Often used with the Sigil of Marking, making targets easier to hit in addition to prone/stunned/confused.
* Force: crushing damage and knockback/knockdown. Also contains Haste.
* Life: Pretty much all healing. Very good at what it does.
* Passion: small amounts of irresistable damage and/or induced emotional states. Can send allies berserk, taunt enemies, inflict despair, put to sleep, etc.
* Stone: Conjures rock to crush or pierce, stone armor, turn enemies to stone.
* Gravelight: Life drain (not subject to resistances) and some paralysis. Can protect against enemy spells.
* Vigor: Opposite of atrophy. Pure buffs, no offense, but some pretty potent buffs.

In addition to their combat effects, mages can use sigils to affect their domain in more freeform ways, and team up to produce bigger effects. It's assumed that Timur, though somewhat unpracticed, is capable of this kind of thing: using the Sigil of Stone to shape or move stone, generating non-combat illusions with the Sigil of Illusion, etc. It's also possible to carve sigils into an object to grant it power relating to them, but that's an art Timur hasn't practiced (although he employs people who are very, very good at it). He generally has the out-of-combat capabilities you'd expect of a mage of his caliber. He also doesn't have a MP/mana system; other mages remark on getting tired, but his capacity seems to be enormous.

Reputation powers: Probably due to his baby Overlord status, Timur draws strength and power from his reputation among various groups and his bonds with his companions. He gets one set of abilities for positive reputation and a different set for negative reputation. For organizations, the organization doesn't still have to be around afterwards once he gains the abilities; he keeps them regardless, as the Stonestalkers and Scarlet Chorus demonstrate. For party members, it's always a Cool Combo Attack so it depends on them being around and in the party.

In general, he gets a passive ability from an organization at a moderate level of reputation and a powerful active ability at high reputation, for both Favor (good reputation) and Wrath (bad reputation). For party members, he gets a basic combo as soon as they join the party, and one for moderate Loyalty or Fear reputation. It's possible for him to have both sides at once, which means that the organization or party member is conflicted on how they view him. In general, he prefers going for Favor or Loyalty, but he's got a couple of max-Wrath abilities from groups he's come into conflict with.

Combos will be cool to come up with in play, but as for existing (active and active-esque) rep abilities, he has the following:

* Flesh to Stone (Stone Stalker Tribe/High Wrath): A lance of green light that does heavy crushing damage and temporarily petrifies any living being struck. The petrification wears off after a while (unless it kills something, when it becomes cinematically permanent).
* Undying Fatebinder (Disfavored/Initial Wrath): Gain a protective ward once per battle when reduced to low health, absorbing moderate damage.
* Stand Together, Stand Tall (Disfavored/Initial Favor): Increased Resolve for self and nearby party members.
* Spurting Blood (Scarlet Chorus/High Wrath): Magically cause violent hemorrhaging in a single target, dealing severe raw (irresistable) damage and long-duration bleed damage.
* Elemental Shield (Forge-Bound/High Favor): Shield a target almost completely against elemental effects.
* Intimidate (Bronze Brotherhood/High Wrath): Cause terror in a single target, forcing them to run or panic.
* Drain Strength (Vendrian Guard/High Wrath): Absorb Might, Finesse and Resolve from enemies in a large cone AoE, granting those points to Timur.
* Withering Touch (Unbroken/High Wrath): Channel entropic energy into a touched target, stunning them for a short period and weakening them for a much longer one.

In addition to all the above, Timur has his own innate talents! The notable of these are:

* Charged Strike: Charge up his staff and unleash a ball of green fire. Nothing special, just a basic AoE.
* Channel Strength: Big AoE cone that does a bit more damage. If there are arcane entities or spirits in the AoE, they take more damage and Timur heals for some of the damage he deals them.
* Energy Shield: Puts a ward on a target ally that absorbs some of the elemental and physical damage dealt to them, as well as helping them resist spells.
* Chaos Blast: Powerful PBAoE that knocks back all enemies around Timur and afflicts them with random status ailments.
* Refuse Pain: Radiates an aura of will that strips negative effects from himself and nearby allies, once every few seconds.
* Resurgence: Command an unconscious ally to rise and rejoin the fight, healing them and reviving them.
* Palm Strike: Focuses his power through an open-handed strike, knocking an enemy target back and silencing them

He's got various others that I'll go into if necessary, but most of them affect his party so it's not immediately important. (Unlike most RPG heroes, joining Timur's party gets you some pretty solid, tangible benefits.)

Edicts: This is something that may or may not ever come up, but I'm writing it up because it's badass. Timur has the ability to speak Edicts: massive-scale magical proclamations that immediately come true. This breaks all kinds of magical rules and is the kind of power that makes or breaks an Empire; in fact, the only other person known to wield it is Kyros, the Overlord of the known world and the being Timur once served as the youngest member of the Court of Fatebinders.

If normal spells are conventional arms or even artillery, Edicts are strategic weapons. They're not precision instruments; in canon, even an edict aimed at a single target caused massive earthquakes that tore a whole region apart. (Granted, the target in question was the Archon of Stone, which means that that level of force was probably required.) Timur can unleash storms that level cities, drown whole regions in eternal night or slowly turn everything living in a province to stone. If he's fighting in a region he's laid an Edict onto, he'll get some pretty impressive bonuses, and anything he's fighting will have to contend with the Edict's force.

Thus far in canon, he's had to be at a special magical device that resonates to his voice in order to unleash Edicts, but his powers are still (very rapidly) developing, and who can say what RP might hold? (Kyros doesn't seem to have this restriction, for example.) It's doubtful that he'll feel the need to unleash that much collateral damage, though.

AS IF ALL THAT WEREN'T ENOUGH Timur's currently wielding some powerful artifacts, items which have acquired their own legend and power. Collecting these adds to his legend, which in turn feeds back into his Overlord powers, so he has a few! Artifact powers can only be used once per long rest. AURORA NOTE: he has not yet regained any of these although he will probably at least try for some of them.

* Staff of Cairn (magic staff topped with a glowing amethyst crystal, flakes of stone seem to drift away from it): huge int boost and Evocation of Cairn (big AoE that deals crush damage and petrifies enemies, gives allies bonus Might/Vitality/Resolve and increased armor)
* Hierarch's Robes (sleeveless tunic/kilt combo, roman style): increased sorcery effectiveness and Aspect of Nightmares (cone AoE, causes a phantasm that terrifies enemies)
* Binding of Shadows (bracer of chitin and solid shadow): reduces damage taken and Shadow's Embrace (become a shadow form for bonus arcane damage to attacks and bonus damage reduction)
* Banner of Ardent (scrap of torn cloth attached to his belt): heavy damage reduction for the first few seconds of a fight and Force of Peace (massive damage-absorb shield that paralyzes attackers)